Sept., 1918 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 171 



ing inlet between tule beds, cnt the pass, enabling the birds in time of need, bad 

 wind or weather, to shift quickly from lake to lake. 



When I first looked across the mouth of the largest tule bay, hoping for a 

 sight of the one white line I had seen before, I started, for not one but four 

 white lines were in view. One slid obliquely forward as I watched, and by this 

 characteristic movement was transformed from a line into a grebe throat. As 

 I watched the bay, one by one other silvery throats came in sight until I had ex- 

 citedly counted twelve. 



The Grebes had evidently had an early breakfast, as, from half past eight 

 when I found them, for over two hours they mostly sat around, resting and 

 preening themselves. Their corner of the lake, the warm south-east corner, 

 however, was a quietly busy harbor. A few families of nondescript inconspic- 

 uous ducklings swam about with their brown mothers, sometimes stringing out 

 in single file, cocky Ruddy Ducks were also in evidence, and seven bricky Red- 

 heads attracted five others which flew in and lit down with a splash, after 

 which the twelve swam about together. A grebe that came up wet and be- 

 draggled must have been the Holboell, though seen in a poor light that made it 

 look characterless beside the long white-necked ^Echmophorus. Gulls and 

 Black-crowned Night Herons stood on posts down the lake, and gulls disported 

 themselves about the pelican rocks that projected from the pass. 



But the only real figures on the stage were the snowy-throated grebes. 

 They seemed decidedly sociable, for the most part keeping in groups of their 

 own kind, but sometimes swimming about and preening themselves uncon- 

 cernedly close to the Redheads and others of their neighbors. From the first, 

 when watching the grebes at a distance, I was puzzled by figures that instead 

 of a long white neck had only a round white breast patch. But finally I dis- 

 covered that they were grebes whose necks were laid down on their backs to 

 rest ! Nine grebes were seen together at one time in front of a brown-topped 

 level tule wall, some with heads resting on their backs, some facing one way, 

 some another. 



In different poses they looked strikingly different. Facing you, the knife- 

 blade bill served as the stem of a broad black Y, the crest widening out at the 

 back of the head. When the head was canted over in preening the back, this 

 black was lost sight of, and the effect given was of a perfectly white bird, its 

 neck making a long white loop. The white effect was also given when one fac- 

 ing you rose above the lake and flapped its wings showing their white linings. 

 Two grebes preening their feathers a short distance apart made a pretty pic- 

 ture, now raising their long white necks to their full height, now laying them 

 down as they preened their wings and back — now up, now back, now up, now 

 back ; their necks when raised full height looking amazingly long. While in 

 some poses the grebes were all white, in others, back to you, they were all 

 black, the black crest and black line down the back of the neck at a distance 

 in some lights and at some angles outlining a black bird, and when preening, a 

 black hook. When one of the birds turned on one side its breast gleamed 

 across the water, as Chapman's Handbook has it, "like a flash from a mir- 

 ror", surprising in its intensity. 



Two of these Swan Grebes, as they are well called, standing near each oth- 

 er with stately heads held high made a beautiful picture. Once two of them 

 swimming side by side to my amazement reared up full length above the water 

 and with heads raised suggesting white snakes about to hiss, rode the water 



