GREAT CRESTED GREBE.
This, the largest species, the Podicipes cristatus of naturalists, is chiefly an inland bird, but resorts to the sea when fresh waters are frozen. I have sometimes met with half a dozen together in a quiet bay, under these circumstances, and very graceful interesting birds they are. They rarely come upon the land at these times, swimming about and diving from time to time in quest of food. Like the Divers, they sometimes sink the body very low in the water, but under ordinary conditions sit rather high, with the long neck held well up, the head turned at intervals in all directions as if on the look out for enemies. They always prefer to dive when pursued; and as this species more especially is in great demand by plumasiers, and subject to much persecution, it is wary and shy in extreme. The food of this Grebe whilst on the sea is composed largely of fish, but inland the bird’s tastes are more omnivorous. Sometimes many of its own feathers are found in its stomach, mixed with the food, but as yet ornithologists have been unable to assign any plausible explanation of the fact. In Spring, the adults assume two very conspicuous crests or horns of a dark brown colour, and a tippet or ruff of bright bay, shading into nearly black on the margin. The birds now retire inland to meres and lakes, where the shallows are full of reeds, sedges, rushes, and other aquatic vegetation, and here, at some distance from the shore, a large floating nest is made, composed of dead and decaying vegetation. As the bird is sometimes gregarious several nests may often be found within a small area—huge floating rafts moored to the reeds, or built up from the bottom of the shallow water. In a shallow depression at the top four or five eggs are laid, elliptical in shape, chalky in texture, and white, until contact with the bird’s wet feet and the wet nest covers them with stains. Several mock nests are often made in the vicinity of the one containing the eggs, probably destined as resting places for the future young. The sitting bird very dexterously covers its eggs with weed when alarmed, previous to slipping off the nest into the water. The note of this Grebe is a loud kak.