GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 
197 
beautiful sight; there may have been thirty or forty of them. 
Every now and then one or two dived out of sight; occasionally 
a pair or two took wing ; and by-and-by the rest flew away 
together, and, wheeling round, settled in the middle of the 
lake. Although it was the 30th of May the reeds had not 
attained a fourth of their ultimate height, and the Grebes had 
only just begun to breed. Many nests were empty, many 
contained only a single egg, and none of them contained more 
than two. Although the nests were exposed to the bird s-eye 
view of a passing Crow, on account of the smallness of the 
reeds, none of the eggs were covered. 
“ A week afterwards I found a very large colony of Great 
Crested Grebes on the Garda See, a lake close to the sea, 
about sixty miles west of the Gulf of Danzig. They were 
breeding in an immense reed-bed, and as our boat neared 
their nesting-grounds we saw the Grebes sailing majestically, 
not to say indignantly, out of the side of the reed-bed. As 
soon as we reached the place I put on my waders and was 
soon in a dense forest of reeds, where it was very easy to lose 
one’s way. The water was above my knees, and the reeds 
were far above my head. After stopping to take the nest of a 
Great Sedge-Warbler with four eggs, I soon found the colony 
of Grebes. There were dozens of nests, but never very close 
to each other, and I soon filled my handkerchief with eggs. 
It was the 5th of June, and only about half the nests contained 
the full complement of eggs. The birds had evidently seen us 
long before we approached, and had had ample time to retreat 
with dignity. In the nests which contained three or four eggs, 
they were warm and covered with damp moss ; but in those 
containing only one or two they were uncovered and cold. 
This applied equally to the nests on the outskirts of the reeds, 
where the eggs could be seen by a passing Crow, and to those 
hidden in the depths of the reed-bed. The natural inference is 
that the eggs are not covered until the female begins to sit, 
and that the object of covering them is not protective, at least 
in the technical sense in which that word is used. The Grebes 
cover their eggs, not to conceal them from enemies, but to 
protect them from cold. In the recesses of a dense reed- 
bed white eggs are as inconspicuous as in a hole in a tree or 
in a bank.” 
