4 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL. MUSEUM. 
wade and the canes are so thick that it is almost impossible to push 
a canoe through them. The few nests that we found were near the 
edges of small ponds or channels and well concealed in the thick 
growth; the nests were large and well-made structures of dry, dead 
canes, 2 or 8 feet in diameter and built up 6 or 7 inches above the 
water. 
The large grebe colonies of the Klamath Lake region in southern 
Oregon and northern California have been described by several 
well-known writers. The lakes in this region contain probably the 
largest western grebe colonies in this country where thousands of 
them breed in harmony with Caspian and Forster’s terns, white 
pelicans, and other water birds. This region has long been famous 
as a profitable field for plume hunters, where they have reaped a 
rich harvest, making $20 or $30 a day and during the height of the 
breeding season killing several thousand birds a week. The breasts 
of the western and other grebes were in great demand for the mil- 
linery trade; for the paltry sum of 20 cents apiece they were 
stripped off, dried, and shipped to New York, Such slaughter 
could not have continued much longer: without disastrous results. 
Through the activities of the Audubon Societies, the attention of 
President Roosevelt was called to the need of protection, and on 
August 8, 1908, he set apart the Klamath Lake Reservation, and on 
August 18, 1908, the Lake Malheur Reservation, thus saving from 
destruction the largest and most interesting wild-fowl nurseries 
on the Pacific coast. Mr. W. L. Finley (19072) has enjoyed good 
opportunities for studying the western grebes in these colonies and 
writes thus interestingly of their habits: 
Lower Klamath Lake is a body of water about 25 miles long by 10 or 12 
miles wide. About its sides are great marshes of tules. The whole border is 
a veritable jungle, extending out for several miles from the main shore is an 
almost endless area of floating tule islands, between which is a network of 
channels. Here, where we found the nesting colony of western grebes, we 
had good chances to study the habits of these birds. 
About one of these islands we found the floating grebe nests every few feet 
apart, and counted over 60 in a short distance. We rowed up to one end and 
landed and then waded along just inside the thick growth of tules that grew 
along the edge. From this place, partly concealed as we were, we could look 
through the tules and see the grebes swimming and diving near their nests. 
Across the channel along the edge of the opposite island were many more grebe 
nests, and some of the birds were sitting on their eggs. 
The nests of the western grebes were, as a rule, built up of dry reeds higher 
out of the water than those of the eared grebe. I never saw a case where 
this bird covered its eggs with reeds before leaving them. Many times we saw 
them sitting on their eggs during the day. In other cases. they seemed to leave 
the eggs to be hatched out partly by the sun. The usual number of eggs we 
found in a set were 3 and 4, although we often found 6 and 7. In several 
cases, we found places among the dry tules where an extra large set of eggs 
had been laid. We saw 16 eggs in one set, but there had been no attempt at a 
nest, and the eggs had never been incubated. 
