Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/384

352 as Mr. Howard Saunders, I must demur to his statement that when three eggs are found in a Swift's nest they are probably the produce of two females. I have found this to occur so often, and in isolated nests, that unless for the sake of argument one supposes the Swift to regularly lay in each other's nests, the evidence, to my mind, is strongly in favour of the hen bird by no means infrequently laying three eggs.

Kingfishers are certainly not so rare as many people suppose, but they are often unobserved. I knew of a nest, the young of which were reared within two miles of York Minster.

I witnessed the prettiest ornithological sight that I have seen for many a long day, on June 15th, on a certain large sheet of water. I rowed out to examine a Great Crested Grebe's nest, which was made on a foundation of various species of Potamogeton, surmounted by a quantity of stalks of a large Equisetum or mare's-tail. There were two other similar nests near, and I have generally found one or more of these false nests near the true nest of the Great Crested Grebe. The idea is that the cock bird uses them as resting-places or look-out stations; and though I have not been able to verify the same myself, still it seems a feasible explanation. When I arrived within a couple of hundred yards of the nest I could see through my glasses that the old bird was greatly excited. She allowed me to advance within forty yards of her, when I stopped my boat and saw that the eggs had been hatched, for she had three young ones, two or three days old with her; one was on her back, and the other two were tucked away, one under each wing. She gradually sunk herself in the water till only her head was above it, and then dived, coming up a long distance from where she went down. I never before had the pleasure of seeing a Grebe dive with her young ones, and it was a sight I most thoroughly appreciated. While the Great Crested Grebe is, if anything, on the increase, the Little Grebe, in my experience, is slightly diminishing in numbers; there are plenty in the winter, but few in the breeding-season, and they do not breed on the big sheets of water, as the large Pike play havoc with them. They are well known throughout all the three Hidings as "Tom Puddings," a cognomen which I do not remember to have seen mentioned in any book.

On this same sheet of water where the Great Crested Grebes