feet of them and in plain sight, although my line of approach was concealed by 

 the sloping parapet. The one desire of the visitors seems to be to sleep. They 

 probably dropped down just before sunrise to rest after the long night passage 

 from the Georgian Bay. In sleeping they draw the head back and settle it 

 between the shoulders, thrusting the bill down precisely to the right. Now 

 and then one lifts its head and describes a wary circle of reconnaisance, but is 

 soon reassured and resumes its slumbers. While taking these cat naps in my 

 presence thev swim and whirl automatically and maintain their general position, 

 as though gifted with a double consciousness. There are five males in company 

 with one female, and the white of their breasts and throats glistens purely in 

 the morning sun. The bills are so small and slender that there is no possible 

 danger at this range of confusing them with the commoner Pied-billed Grebe. 



At some distance and in the confusion of waving grass or tossing billow, 

 a grebe may at times be mistaken for a duck, but the leaping dive which 

 usually follows discovery or close approach, serves to distinguish it from most 

 ducks. The way of the bird in the air, too, is quite unducklike, since it'thrusts 

 its feet out behind at different angles, and moves with the directness of a 

 fixing projectile. Upon land the Grebe is almost helpless, and only flounders 

 about awkwardly and pitches forward upon its head. 



Concerning the breeding of the Horned Grebe in the state, we have no 

 account except that left us by Dr. Langdon in 1880. During a stay of a week 

 in the Port Clinton marshes, the doctor saw no birds ; but he came upon 

 two sets of eggs of two each, which seemed referable, by elimination, to this 

 species. He says : "These eggs are chalky-white with a faint, though definite, 

 tinge of pale bluish-green, much like the tint of the Least Bittern's egg, and 

 very unlike the pale whitey-brown of the eggs of P. podiceps observed by us. 

 * * That our sets were probably full is indicated by the fact that one of 

 them contained fulh' developed young, which si^'aut and even attempted to 

 dire, on being placed in the water after remoxal from the egg. The nests were 

 similar to those of P. podiecps described below, and the eggs were covered in 

 like manner by decaying vegetation dtiring the day and left for the sun to incubate. 



"The young removed from the eggs presented slight but constant dift'erences 

 in the head and neck markings, and the size of the bill as compared with the 

 young of P. podiceps. obtained in the same manner — those supposed to be 

 P. cprniitus being smaller, with more slender bills, less blotching about the head 

 and neck and none in the median line of the throat.'' 



Name on color plate should be Horned Grebe. — A. W. AI. 



459 



