HABITS OF THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 175 



continued to work thus alone for a short time afterwards ; yet 

 the nest, when I first saw it at 6.10, looked as large as the other, 

 and as though it represented a great deal more weed than the 

 birds had brought in these fifty minutes. They must, I think, 

 have been working from earliest dawn. The male did not, this 

 time, leave off nest-building to continuously build a platform, but 

 on three or four occasions he varied the former by taking a cargo 

 to a patch of very green and grassy-looking rushes, just off the 

 bank, returning, then, to the nest and continuing to work as 

 before. On the last of these journeys he brought a stick to the 

 bank, and, having laid it down, he immediately stood up — I have 

 no doubt upon it, as part of the platform. I had seen him 

 standing there before, also, as well as sitting, shortly after I 

 arrived. The male Crested Grebe therefore, at any rate, makes 

 a platform of weeds, &c., at a little distance from the nest, on 

 which to stand or sit during the building of it, and also probably 

 during incubation. Both to-day and yesterday the female some- 

 times carried a very large mass of weed to the nest. Once 

 yesterday her head and neck, as she dragged it, were pulled right 

 back, and this morning her head was once almost hidden behind 

 the mass she was holding. The male never carried quite so large 

 a quantity, though his average was about the same, and he worked 

 very quickly and eagerly. Generally he carried a longer and 

 thinner piece, which would rest on his back and stream behind 

 him along the water. To see him swimming thus draped, very 

 quickly and straight as a die, to the nest was a pretty — indeed, a 

 fascinating — -sight. He would swim out from the nest, dive and 

 emerge generally, if not always, with his head turned the other 

 way — to it, that is — and swim back almost without a pause. He 

 swam much faster than the female. 



7.30. — I now notice the male bird making his platform or raft 

 systematically, bringing cargo after cargo to it. He takes three 

 or four (how many he may have taken before I caught sight of 

 him I do not know), but now, at 7.35, both birds are at the nest 

 again, and the female places a stick upon it. 



7.40. — Male carrying loads to his platform again. He has 

 carried, I think, two or three more, and now stands up, and then 

 sits upon it in the same way as does the female on the nest. 



7.43. — He is off again, and carries another load a little past 



