6 WATER-BIRDS fN THEIR HOMES. 



without leaving a ripple, and you may never see her again ; for 

 she can swim a long way with only her bill out of the water. 

 If she is suddenly alarmed, she will plunge in with a splash, 

 head down and heels up, and so quickly that she can dodge 

 a bullet after she sees the flash of the gun. So the com- 

 monest names of the grebe are "devil-diver," or "hell-diver," 

 or " water- witch." 



The grebe builds her nest in the water, making it of rushes 

 and water-plants, which she nips off with her sharp bill and 

 piles together, either upon the bottom, upon the shore close 

 to the water's edge, or around some tall reed which securely 

 moors the little floating nest. On leaving the nest she covers 

 it with grass and weeds, so that it may be 'less easily detected. 

 The nest is usually wet, and often the eggs lie partly in the 

 water that gathers in it. But this seems to make no difference 

 to the little grebes, who, as soon as they are hatched, are ready 

 to sail off after their mother. What a very damp life a grebe 

 must lead, always in the water, whether asleep or awake, and 

 even when in the shell hatched in a leaky cradle ! 



Yet it is not an unpleasant life. The grebe has few enemies, 

 and the most of these she can escape by diving. Food is 

 always abundant. Those pleasant little excursions among the 

 giant bulrushes and the fields of lily-pads bring her many a 

 gay dragon-fly and dancing may-fly and swift water-skater. It 

 is fun for her to follow a school of minnows, nipping them 

 right and left. Besides, she has many games with her 

 mates, running upon the water and diving just for the fun 

 of it. 



The grebe's nearest neighbors among the rushes are two 

 solemn, long-legged fellows called the heron and the stake- 

 driver, or bittern, who fish in the shallow water ; a family of 

 wood-ducks that paddle around among the pads and cat-tails, 



