732 PODICEPS COENUTUS, HORNED GREBE. 



Cohimhits ohsciiriis, G:*.!., Syst. Nat. i, 1788, C92. 



Fodicips ol»icnriii<, Latu./IikI. Oni. ii, 1790, 7S2.— Lkach, Cat. 1816, 3.'). 



Cohimhus empicus, S. G. Gm., Reise, iv, i;^7. — Gm., Syst. Nat. i, 1788, 59J. 



Podici'ps cnsjx'cHS, Lath., Iiid. Orn. ii, 1790, 784. 



ColjivihuH n'ujricans, Scopoli, Aun. i, No. 101 (?). 



J'odicpjis arcticus, BoiE. 



Podiaps schtnis, Bp. 



Hub. — North America. Europ'3. Asia. 



Adult, hreediug pJumage. — Bill black, tipped with yellow. A browuish-yellow stripe 

 over eye, widcuiug behind aud deepeuiiifj; in color at the ends of the long crests, and 

 being dark chestnut between eye and bill, (hown, chin, and the very full rutf glossy 

 greenish-black. Upper jiarts brownish-black, with paler edges of the feathers. Pri- 

 maries rather light chocolate-brown, with black shafts, except at the base. Second- 

 aries white. Neck all round, except stripe down behind and sides of the body, rich 

 dark brownish-red or purplish wine-red, mixed with dusky on the flanks. Under parts 

 pure silky-white. 



Winter plumage, and young. — Bill dusky, much of the under mandible bluish or yel- 

 lowish-white. Indications of crests and raft' in the length and fullness of the feathers 

 of the parts. Crown and neck behind, and sides of the body, sooty-blackish. Other 

 upper parts and the wings as in the adult. Chin, throat, aud sides of head, pure white, 

 this color nearly encircling the nape. Neck in frout and lower belly lightly washed 

 with ashy-gray. Under parts as before. 



Neidfi-Jicdged ijoung are cuiiously striped on the head with rufous, dusky and white, 

 as in Podihjmhun and elsewhere. 



Dimensions. — Length, about 14 inches; extent. 24 ; wing, 5.75; tarsus, 1.75 ; middle 

 toe aud claw, 2.10 ; bill along culmeu, about 0.90 ; along gape, 1.30; its height at the 

 nostrils, O.W; its width there, 0.25. 



The bill in this species is compressed, tapering, with considerably curved culmeu — 

 quite different from the broad depressed bill with straight tip and much ascending 

 gouys of P. aurilus. It varies much in size, even among equally adult examples; in 

 the young it is always smaller and weaker than in the old. Biack, yellow-tipped in 

 the old, wo lind it variously lighter in the young — usuall,y dusky on the ridge, else- 

 where tinged with olivaceous, yellowish, or even orange or extensively bluish-white. 

 In breeding plumage this bird is conspicuously different from any other; but the young 

 are much like those of P. aurilus, requiring sometimes careful discrimination, as pointed 

 out under head of the latter. 



This species is much more almiulant and generallj' dispersed in wiuter 

 in the United States than either of the two larger oues, and it also nests 

 within ourlimits. I found it breeding at various points in Northern 

 Dakota, as along the lied Iliver, in the prairie sloughs, with Coots, 

 Phalaropes, and various Ducks, and in pools about the base of Tuitlo 

 Mountain in company with P. californicus and the Dabchick. I took 

 fresh eggs on the 20th of June, at Pembina, finding them s(,'attered on 

 a soaking bed of decayed reeds, as they had doubtless been disturbed 

 b}' the hasty movements of the parents in quittiug the nest; there were 

 only four; i)robably more would have been laid. They are elliptical 

 in shape, with little or no difference in contour at either end ; dull 

 whitish, with a very faint shade, (]uite smooth, and measure about 1.70 

 by 1.20. On Turtle Mountain, late in July, I procured newly-batched 

 young, swimming with their parents in the various pools. At this early 

 stage the neck is striped as in the common Dabchick. Later in the 

 season, during the migration, the Horned Grebes were numerous all 

 along the Souris or IMouse Iviver, in company with an equal or even 

 greater number of Eared Grebes, nearly all of both species being the 

 young-of-the-year. In their immature plumage the two cannot be dis- 

 tinguished on the water, and indeed s[)ecimeus sometimes occur which 

 are with difticulty discriminated at this early age. But the smaller size, 

 somewhat different proportions of tarsus and toes, and the flatter, com- 

 paratively broader bill of P. uuritus, is generally characteristic. 



