Bulletin of the Michigan Ornithological Club. 



6 i 



IJwmWJJP 



Nest of the Pied=billed Grebe. 



(Photo by T. L. Hankinson.) 



with the water to your waist. But these 

 little inconveniences only serve as a little 

 spice to the clays 1 collecting. 



Soon after reaching our destination we 

 ate our lunch, and struck out diagonallv 

 towards the northwest. Mallards and 

 Blue-winged Teal were abundant on the 

 small open patches of water, and flew up 

 before us in numbers as we pushed along. 

 Sometimes when we had worked along a 

 little carefully under cover of the brush 

 we would hear such a quacking in front of 

 us as would remind us of a country barn- 

 yard, but as we pushed through the cover, 

 there would be a great flapping, a whirr 

 of wings, and away would go a flock of 

 Mallards with a speed that would take 

 away the breath of their civilized, refined, 

 and dignified cousins in domestication. 



We kept on with no incident except 

 now and then putting up a Least Bittern 

 or a Rail, peeping into the numerous Red- 

 wings' nests to count the eggs or young, 

 and examining the cocoanut-like nests of 

 the Long-billed Marsh Wrens, when, on 

 peering around among the flags of a small 

 island in a pond larger than usual, I thought 



I had run upon an incubator of some sort 

 — and truly I had, upon a Coot incubator! 

 There, in a diameter of ten inches, were 

 sixteen eggs, and that number was prob- 

 ably multiplied to my astonished eyes at 

 first sight. The nest was built up on the 

 brush and a mass of flags so that the inside 

 was dry ; the picture shows it so well that 

 I think further description is unnecessary. 



We hid ourselves in the neighboring 

 cat-tails to see if the birds would not 

 return, but although we heard them in the 

 vicinity, they would not show themselves. 

 When I had been standing this way in a 

 hole of water above my knees for some 

 time, I happened to look down at my side, 

 and there was a Sora's nest with ten eggs 

 which I had almost stepped upon. 



Marking the situation of the Coot's nest, 

 so that we might bring out a camera and 

 get a picture of it, and continuing our 

 search, we had gone but a short distance 

 when we found another nest of this species, 

 and five addled eggs around it in the water. 

 The position of the nest was much the 

 same as in the former. The search was 

 longer this time, and then we found still 



