The Great Crested Grebe. i8 5 



early nests are almost always built before the rushes have shot up sufficiently 

 high to afford much shelter. I have known fairly fresh eggs to be taken in 

 Warwickshire as late in the summer as the 24th June, and young birds, about 

 one third grown, as early as the 19th June. 



The nest is usually placed just inside a bed of reeds or rushes. Usually it 

 is a floating structure moored to the rushes, but it appears that it is sometimes 

 built up from the ground. The nest is a flat platform of green rushes (when 

 fresh), reeds and other water plants, merely laid one on the top of the other and 

 not worked up into shape; it is but little raised above the surface of the water, 

 and is usually quite wet. So far from being cold, it has been proved that the 

 nests are, to some extent, hot-beds. The eggs are usually three or four in 

 number, rarely five ; while as many as six and (in Spain) seven have been found. 

 They are said to be laid on alternate days. 



The eggs, when fresh, vary from a dull creamy to a greenish- white, with a 

 chalky surface, of irregular and varying thickness, overlying a shell tinged with 

 green — this colour is very apparent when the egg shell is held up to the light 

 and examined through a hole in one side of the egg. Prom constant contact 

 with the more or less decaying vegetation of which the nest is composed, and the 

 bird's feet, the eggs usually become stained with brown. The outline of the 

 eggs of all our Grebes is a more or less nearly perfect oval ; but the shape is 

 hardly ever, if ever, that of a double cone, that is to say the largest diameter 

 is rather nearer one end than the other, so that it is possible to say which 

 is the " big end " ; usually the egg tapers off slightly towards the small end, 

 which is in nearly all cases rather more pointed than the other. The eggs measure 

 about 2*2 in length by 1*45 in breadth. Both sexes take part in incubation. 



The Great Crested Grebe covers its eggs on leaving the nest; but opinions 

 differ as to whether this is done to protect them from cold or from observation. 

 It seems possible that the birds, when once the clutch of eggs is complete, do 

 not usually remove the covering during incubation. 



Young Grebes doubtless frequently fall a prey to the large pike usually found 

 in the haunts of these birds, and in only one instance have I ever seen more 

 than two young birds following their parents. The young birds are said to be 

 fed with small eels, roach and other fish, and aquatic insects, as well as with some 

 vegetable food. Grebes take great care of their young when the latter are quite 

 small. One summer evening I watched an old bird, in a thin bed of rushes, carrying 

 her young on her back, some portion of her wings (the secondaries or tertials 

 perhaps), or the scapulars being slightly raised, forming a sort of cradle. Four 

 days later both the old Grebes had the young out on the open water, evidently 



Vol. VI 2 E 



