ON THE HABITS OF THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 19 
they were at play, I saw both dive, and presently re-appear 
simultaneously, breast to breast, the splash of their impact being 
distinctly audible at some little distance. 
After a while, a strange male disturbed their honeymoon, and 
was persistently chased hither and thither by the bird in posses- 
sion, who was stimulated to doughty deeds by the constantly 
‘repeated and duck-like ‘ kek, kek,” of his mate. Having 
endured persecution for several days, the rival departed; I saw 
no actual collision between him and the paired bird, whose 
warlike operations seemed to be singularly futile. 
In 1888, the first Grebe appeared on the 18th, and the second 
on the 25th of March. No preliminary courtship took place, 
nidification commenced about the 1st of April, and the first 
egg was laid on the 18th of the same month. So far as I 
could judge, the nest was built in exactly the same place as in 
1887. This, with the absence of courtship in 1888, renders it 
‘probable that these birds pair for life, or at aly, rate for more 
than one season. 
The situation chosen for the nest was the edge of a patch of 
lake weed, within twenty feet or so of a small island; in neither 
year was a second, or look-out platform made, that purpose being 
served, perhaps, by the island or some alder-roots out-growing 
from it. Except on the side covered by the island, the nest, with 
the sitting bird, was perfectly visible from the water’s edge; 
indeed, the lake weed in 1888 did not attain its full growth until 
after the young had been hatched. It is possible that, being new 
to the place, and fearful of being disturbed, the Grebes in 1887 
waited for the growth of the weed before they seriously began to 
build. 
The nest was a solid structure, composed chiefly of dead 
sticks and stalks of lakeweed, with dead leaves, and a few old 
flower vessels of the Spanish chestnut. Both sexes took part in 
nidification, the male while I watched them being the more ener- 
getic of the pair. He would bring stalks of weed in quick 
succession, and, laying them on the side of the nest, leave the 
female to arrange them. But he not only performed what I may 
call mere manual labour; I have also observed him assist his mate 
in shaping the nest, going round and round it, pushing here and 
tugging there, until the result was satisfactory. Once he amused 
me much by his frantic and ultimately successful efforts to bring 
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