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A DIARY OF ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION MADE 

 IN ICELAND DURING JUNE AND JULY, 1912. 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from vol. xvii., p. 422.) 



June 17th. — The quest of the Falcons having failed, and 

 Sigurdsson having told me that a small river which ran into 

 a lake near the one where I had watched the pair of Great 

 Northern Divers, was the haunt of the Horned or Slavonian 

 Grebe, we returned to-day, and pitched the tent upon the crest 

 of a low hill, overlooking both the one and the other. The river, 

 in its general course, was a mere stony burn amongst low hills, 

 but, upon coming out from amongst these into the flat, marshy 

 land at their bases, formed a small creek running parallel with 

 the lake, for some way, before curling round the hill I have 

 spoken of, to join it. In England there might have been both 

 Moorhens and Dabchicks here. The water was weedy, and flags 

 grew in patches, here and there, along the green, marshy banks, 

 but so thinly as not to conceal, except at some distance, either 

 the bird or the nest. There were two of the latter, the probable 

 owners of which disappeared at our approach, but I was in time 

 to see one pair, whose Dabchick-like character I recognized at 

 once, through their superior plumage, engaged in the per- 

 formance of what was probably a courting action, though it may 

 be more developed earlier in the season. The two birds fronted 

 each other, then rose, both together, Penguin-like, in the water, 

 and, after a moment or two, sank down upon it again.* I was 

 now left alone, with the tent, but as this had been designedly 

 pitched so as to be invisible from that part of the stream which 

 I intended to watch, I soon left it and sought out a place of espial 



* The Great Crested Grebes do the same (though I have seen them do 

 more), as also the Red-throated Divers. 



