210 



THE OOLOGIST 



A Great Flight of Grebes. 



Of late years the Horned Grebe is 

 not very plentiful but up to a few years 

 ago there almost always was a day or 

 two during April when there would 

 be quite a few Grebes passing. 



On April 25th, 1893 occurred a most 

 remarkable flight. 



On the 24th it was warm and clear. 

 There were no waterfowl about except 

 a single Grebe seen at noon. Toward 

 evening it clouded. The wind shifted 

 to the northeast and became brisk, 

 along in the night a steady rain set 

 in. On the 25th the wind had increas- 

 ed and all day it blew hard. It was 

 cold too and there was frequent show- 

 ers. At daylight on the 25th the Horn- 

 ed Grebes were everywhere. 



I spent the day at my favorite duck- 

 ing grounds down the river and that 

 day I saw more Grebes than I ever ex- 

 pect to see again. All day long flock 

 after flock kept coming up the river. 

 At times I could see four or five flocks 

 coming at once. Here and there were 

 flocks floating down stream and you 

 could not walk any distance along the 

 shore without seeing whole droves 

 come piling out of the overflowed wil- 

 lows ahead of you. I laid around a 

 good deal in the heavy bush and be- 

 hind drift at what we called the "dead- 

 water." A piece of quiet water along 

 the shore that was always a fine feed- 

 ing ground for water-fowl. As the 

 river was high, flocks of Grebes float- 

 ing down gathered in this place, other 

 uocks flying decoyed and came as did 

 ducks and at times great flocks of 

 Gulls hovered and circled about. At 

 times three or four hundred Grebes 

 were in this place at once and it was 

 surely a great sight to me. Occasion- 

 ally something nice in the duck line 

 came along and I would shoot. Then 

 there would be a tremendous scatter- 

 ing but right away they would begin 

 dropping in again and were soon as 

 thick as ever. 



Beside the Grebes there were a good 

 lot of Bonaparte Gulls. Some flocks 

 of over one hundred came along dur- 

 ing the day and during the morning an 

 occasional big Herring Gull passed. 



A few flocks of five to twenty Long- 

 tails and Bufflehead came along and 

 several flocks of Lesser Scaup. Also 

 saw singles or pairs during the day of 

 Blue-wing Teal, Ruddy, Wood-duck, R. 

 B. Mergansers, Mallard, Black duck, 

 Whistlers and one pair of Whitewing 

 Scoters. A large flock of Geese were 

 reported seen but I didn't see any and 

 think it was rather late for Geese. 



Most of the Grebes were in full dress 

 but a few were still in winter plumage 

 and many were in all stages in be- 

 tween. 



There must have been thousands 

 and thousands of Grebes in this flight 

 as reports from places between here 

 and Pittsburgh, one hundred eighty 

 miles south of us by rail and between 

 here and Olean, X. Y., sixty miles 

 above us all stated that great num- 

 bers of "hell divers" were seen and 

 many were shot. 



Parties who came up from Pitts- 

 burgh that day said that they could 

 look out of the car windows any time 

 and see plenty of Grebes. 



Here at Warren the shooting sound- 

 ed like a fourth of July celebration 

 and a large number were killed. At 

 Oil City, Olean and other places a 

 great many were shot and altogether 

 the flight must have suffered severe 

 loss. 



Some gunners here killed as high 

 as eight and ten at a single discharge 

 into the huddled flocks along the 

 shore. There did not seem to be any 

 flight or increase of land birds at all. 



Next day but very few were seen 

 and probably most of those seen were 

 wounded birds. 



Old timers and settlers along the 

 river tell me they never saw such num- 



