PYGOPODES. Diving Birds. 



Family I. PODICIPID^. Grebes. 

 I iECHMOPHORUS Coues. 1862. 

 1. Western Grebe. 



AicJimophoyiis occidentalis (Lawr.) 



Accidental in Quebec. Mr. Cowper states in Canadian Spo: ts- 

 fnany Vol. II, that he has seen several specimens on the market 

 in Montreal. {Dionne.) Some time before 1881 a pair was shot 

 at the mouth of the North Nation river, Ont. {Ottatva Naturalist, 

 Vol. V.) Occasionally shot in the Red River valley, Man. 

 One pair seen at a little lake west of Macleod, Alta. (PV. Saunders) 



Our knowledge of the migration of the western grebe is still 

 incomplete, but on May 8th, 1891, specimens were shot at Banff 

 in the Rocky mountains. The next year it reached Indian Head, 

 500 miles to the east, on May 12th. At that time the stomachs of 

 the birds shot contained nothing but feathers. Two days later 

 one was shot that had an amphibian {Amblysioma mavortium) loy^ 

 inches long in its stomach. By the 30th May they had all disap- 

 peared, having gone north to Waterhen, or some other lake, to 

 breed. 



Going west from Portage la Prairie in 1906 I did not note it 

 until we reached Touchwood hills but from that to Edmonton it 

 was noted in all the larger waters. I am of opinion that many of 

 the Manitoba and eastern records would ^on investigation prove 

 to be the Holbcell grebe. There appeared to me, however, to be a 

 peculiar weirdness about the call of this bird, noted and identified 

 as the western grebe, which readily distinguished it from the 

 succeeding species. {Geo. Atkinson.) 



A common winter resident along the Pacific coast. {Fannin.) 

 Tolerably common in the Fraser valley below Yale in the spring 

 and autumn migrations. A few remain all winter at Okanagan 

 lake, B. C. {Brooks.) Six were seen on Bayne lake, near Elko, 



