Nov., 1910 NESTING NOTES ON AMERICAN EARED AND PIED-BILLED GREBES 189 
gling platforms of large, rank, green dock stems, cat-tail stalks, rushes, weeds and 
grass, usually floating in comparatively open water, or in very sparse growths of 
cat-tails, with no apparent attempt at concealment. The nests were very flat, the 
nest cavity often being actually below water level, and the eggs in most cases be- 
ing wet. How these eggs with damp shells retained enuf heat either from the 
parent or from the sun’s rays to hatch them, is a problem which I have been un- 
able to solve. And as a matter of fact quite a perceptible percent of old nests ex- 
amined contained addled eggs. This was equally true of both species. 
The Pied-bills’ nests, on the other hand, were compactly-bilt structures of uni- 
form size and shape, composed entirely of decaying vegetation of a uniform dead 
brown color, well bilt up above the surface of the water and fairly well cupt. They 
were nearly always bilt in a rather dense growth of cat-tails which afforded them 
reasonable concealment, altho a few exceptions were noted where nests had been 
bilt in exposed positions at the edge of open water with no concealment whatever. 
Both species seemed to choose sites where the water was from two to three feet 
Fig. 60. NEST OF AMERICAN EARED GREBE SHOWING CARELESS MANNER 
IN WHICH EGGS ARE COVERED BY PARENT BIRDS 
deep, but this was probably due to the fact that suitable cover grew in this depth 
of water. 
As has been said, the nests of the two birds were radically different in ap- 
pearance, and this was further exemplified in the manner in which the eggs were 
covered during the absence of the parents. The Eared Grebes usually covered the 
eggs very carelessly with a thin layer of grass or rushes, and in many cases the 
eggs could easily be seen thru the covering. The Pied-bills, on the contrary, cov- 
ered their eggs very carefully with a thick layer of moist decaying vegetation of 
the same appearance as the nest proper, spreading it evenly over the top of the 
nest to a depth of two inches or more; and the nest so covered presented a remark- 
able example of protective concealment, looking exactly like the water-soakt tops 
of dilapidated musk-rat houses. In fact, I smile to think of the number of these 
uninteresting looking mounds of filth, which I must have past unheedingly before I 
discovered the secret of their hidden tresures. 
