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 Sept., 1918 A RITURN TO THI DAKOTA LAKI RInGION 171 ing inlet between tule beds, cut the pass, enabling the birds in time of need, bad wind or weather, to shift quickly from lake to lake. Whe n I first looked across the mouth of the largest rule 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 luddy Ducks were also in evidence, and seven bricky led- 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 2Echmophorus. 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. /ut 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- cexnedly close to the ledheads 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 fin. ally 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