Sept., 1918 A RETUR? TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 175 the red-billed black-crowned birds were seen sitting on the edge of a sandspit one afternoon and they were often seen at sunset getting food from the lake and flying off with it in their bills high across the woods in the direction of a large grassy slough where they doubtless had their nests. Bands of Black Terns also passed across'toward the slough. .. Franklin Gulls, mainly spotty-headed immature, were seen mornings close along shore, wading up to their wings or swimming around in shallow water, dipping down to pick insects off the surface, dipping forward till their heads went under water and their tails tipped up; or, on occasion, standing in front of a pile of foam that had blown in shore, picking daintily from its soft masses. In the afternoons the gulls were generally out on the lake. In sweeping the lake with the glass I would locate the flock of grebes or individuals scattered out over the water by horizontal flashes from the white grebe breast or by the white vertical lines of the neck; while the white lines of the necks of the gulls. sometimes found swimming around in such close neighborhood that they had ?o be differentiated from the grebes, were shorter and wider; moreover, the gulls, riding high with wings tight at their sides and tails up at an angle, were always veering around as if ?et on sensitive pivots--often making a smeared re- flection, they veered so much--while the grebes riding low on the water, their bodies making compact ovals, rode steadily. One black-headed adult gull, acting as if trying to lead out a band of immature, faced them and then turned and swam ahead, looking back as if to make sure that it was followed. Out among the silver throats one day, a dark duck, apparently a White: winged Scorer, appeared, swimming rapidly through the flock making the grebes turn to look at it. Old ducks and their broods, notably scoters and golden-eyes, occasionally swam 'up along shore feeding and resting on the stones along' our beach, and a Holboell Grebe with one young was'seen several times swimming and diving near shore. There was also a solitary red-necked Holboell, proba- bly the father, which, while .the white-throated Grebes possessed the lake, 'walked by his lone.' When a King of the Grebes passed near him one day, he ?owcred his head as if recognizing superiority; but perhaps it was merely the nine point superiority of possession! Cormorants were often seen singly or in small numbers in the mornings coming from their breeding islands out on the main part of the lake where ear- lier in the season we had seen some twenty-five of their flat stick nests vari- ously occupied by greenish eggs, skinny emerging nestlings, and larger black velvety young with orange gular pouches, waving black necks for food. Dur- ing the day cormorants were often seen in our cove--Whipple Cove--below the bluff. Several times, on looking down from my height, to 'my. surprise and amusement, above the surface of the water I saw a pair of great, wide spread black wings, like giant butterfly wings, the droll birds sitting on the water drying them. When'they were bathing, I could sometimes hear them splash their wings under water, after which they would rise and flap them in the air,
opening them wide, and holding them out, like wired wings on a hat. When
they rose to fly they splashed noisil? and then with loud flapping, with convex figures--head and tail held low--they would make a wide curve out into the middle of the bay, to get headed for the islands; for though powerful fliers they were sadly lacking in the flexibility and dexterity of wing shown by their white brothers of the air. Seven were seen in line one night, a black file flying high toward their islands, their long pointed wings looking prong-like on their.
