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174 THE CONDOR Vol. XX gone it seemed to give a little shake, probably compressing its air sacs to make itself go completely under water. Sometimes it went below so rapidly that in closing over it the water splashed. One that I saw, sank part way and then dived. Occasionally when one went down, the light would sparkle around its body. it was fascinating to try to count the grebes when part of them were div- ing. i had to keep moving the glass back and forth, sweeping the surface o the water, watching disappearing and reappearing forms, watching the swim- mers which were changing places, and watching closely to count black ducks when they change d into white-throated grebes. A flock of thirty-two were counted one day, most of them black ovals. Who could imagine that those hampish forms were the exquisite silvery throated creatures of lightness and grace ? At one time the black spots seemed to have scattered out into families, groups of four, six, ten, and fourteen swimming by themselves. Some seemed smaller than others, but at my distance I could not be positive that thewsmailer ones were grebes. What I took to be a family of eight were by the shore one day, amusing themselves. Two or three of them acting as if they wanted to get up on some of the high stones along the beach, stretched their necks and put their bills up over the tops of the stones, but gave it up as if it were too high a step. One of them playfully leaned down and poked his bill at a brother, when the broth- cr swam ahead out of his reach, leaving a beautiful glittering wake. Two out on the lake stood close together, their heads held high, green weed dangling from their bills. The long streamers seemed hard to manage but by throwing !:hem up by a quick toss of the bill, they were finally disposed of. After a series of loud grebe calls, as if one had cried, "Here's weed, come ?n in,'" parallel lines of white spray showed a party of grebes running splash- ing over the water, as an interested onlooker from the farmhouse piazza com- mented, "going some !" One ran splashing for a long ways and then rose and flapped its wings. When another swam, gleaming light broke around its body and its wake behind. Once hearing a kr'ree, kr'ree, I looked down and discov- ered two of the distinguished looking birds moving their heads and necks around. Both rose, as the two others had done before, and, side by side, rushed through the water; after which they dived. Perhaps the bath restored their tempers, for when they came up face to face, they began peaceably preening their feathers. When watching the grebes through the glass, down the high bluff and off over the lake, focusing on a seated grebe I was given a bewildered feeling of space and moving water by having a gull or tern fly into the disk of the glass and swoop down between me and my bird. Floating between Water and sky the white terns and. soft gray gulls gave a new sense of motion and depth to the picture. There was an ever shifting panorama--gulls and black and white terns ?:andering through the sky, strings of ducks winging their way to some dis- tant point, and black, long-necked cormorants flying low over the water to or from their nesting islands--all serving as background for the silvery-throated grebes which, wherever they appeared on the lake became the center of inter- est. The note of the white Common Tern was one of the principal sounds in the air, its purring ter'r'r'r contrasting with the compelling kray-kree, kray- krce, and the high pitched kree,ee--kr'r'ree-eek of the grebes. About thirty of