352 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
as Mr. Howard Saunders, I must demur to his statement that 
when three eggs are found in a Swift’s nest they are probably 
the produce of two females. I have found this to occur so 
often, and in isolated nests, that unless for the sake of argument 
one supposes the Swift to regularly lay in each other’s nests, the 
evidence, to my mind, is strongly in favour of the hen bird by 
no means infrequently laying three eggs. 
Kingfishers are certainly not so rare as many people suppose, 
but they are often unobserved. I knew of a nest, the young of 
which were reared within two miles of York Minster. 
I witnessed the prettiest ornithological sight that I have | 
seen for many a long day, on June 15th, on a certain large sheet 
of water. I rowed out to examine a Great Crested Grebe’s nest, 
which was made on a foundation of various species Of Potamogeton, 
surmounted by a quantity of stalks of a large Hquisetum or 
mare’s-tail. There were two other similar nests near, and I have 
generally found one or more of these false nests near the true 
nest of the Great Crested Grebe. The idea is that the cock bird 
uses them as resting-places or look-out stations; and though I 
have not been able to verify the same myself, still it seems a 
feasible explanation. When J arrived within a couple of hundred 
yards of the nest I could see through my glasses that the old bird 
was greatly excited. She allowed me to advance within forty 
yards of her, when I stopped my boat and saw that the eggs had 
been hatched, for she had three young ones, two or three days old 
with her; one was on her back, and the other two were tucked 
away, one under each wing. She gradually sunk herself in the 
water till only her head was above it, and then dived, coming up a 
long distance from where she went down. I never before had the 
pleasure of seeing a Grebe dive with her young ones, and it was 
a sight I most thoroughly appreciated. While the Great Crested 
Grebe is, if anything, on the increase, the Little Grebe, in my 
experience, is slightly diminishing in numbers; there are plenty 
in the winter, but few in the breeding-season, and they do not 
breed on the big sheets of water, as the large Pike play havoc 
with them. They are well known throughout all the three 
Ridings as ‘Tom Puddings,’ a cognomen which I do not 
remember to have seen mentioned in any book. 
On this same sheet of water where the Great Crested Grebes rt 
