14 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



characters by which Mr. Chapman has proposed to distinguish hracliypterus 

 from dominicus are very satisfactorily maintained. The males of both forms 

 have considerably larger bills than the females, a fact which should be borne 

 carefully in mind when birds from different loc;dities are examined. The ma- 

 terial before me furnishes, however, no male from Lower California with a 

 bill as large as that of the smallest-billed female from the West Indies, and the 

 difference in this respect between birds of the same sex from the two regions is 

 very striking. 



This little Grebe was first reported from Lower California by Mr. Belding, 

 who says that it was " very common at San Jose, Miraflores, and Santiago, in 

 the winter of 188'2-'83, but not recognized the previous winter." Mr. Frazar 

 found it only at Santiago in a lagoon of about two hundred acres in extent, the 

 greater part of which was filled with a rank growth of tule, there being but 

 little open water. In this lagoon during the latter half of November the 

 Short-winged Grebes were very common, upwards of a hundred being often 

 seen by Mr. Frazar in the course of a single morning. Among the specimens 

 obtained here are several young birds which must have been hatched in the 

 lagoon. Indeed one (No. 18,270), taken November 15, is a mere chick, barely 

 one-third grown and still wholly in the down. 



Although this Grebe has been attributed to the "valley of the Colorado " ^ 

 River it seems probable that the resident colony above referred to was derived 

 from western Mexico, where the bird is abundant and widely distributed. It 

 is not known to occur anywhere in the central or northern portion of Lower 

 California. 



Podilymbus podiceps (Linn.). 



Pied-billed Grebe. 



Podilymbus podiceps Belding, Proc. U. S. Nat. IMus., V. 1883, 546 (Cape Region), 

 Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d sen, II. 1889, 250 (Cape Region). 



The Pied-billed Grebe is common in winter about the Bay of La Paz and its 

 inlets. It was also found by Mr. Frazar in September and October at San 

 Jose del Cabo, where it "arrived " on September 12. It haunts chiefly, if not 

 exclusively, the salt or brackish bays, or creeks near the coast and appears to 

 desert at least the southern portion of the peninsula during the breeding 

 season. This is somewhat remarkable, for the Pied-billed Grebe is said to 

 breed throughout the whole of Mexico and Central America as well as most 

 of South America and there would seem to be no reason why it should not 

 nest with the Short-winged Grebes in the lagoon at Santiago. 



1 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds N. Amer., II. 1884, 439. 



