20 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 70. 



floats for the first signs of a catch. It must be confessed, 

 however, that my attention was not so taken up by my fishing 

 that I did not find plenty of time to observe the interesting 

 species of birds that were to be seen in that vicinity. 



While sitting thus in our canoes waiting for the fish to 

 " bite," we noticed a strange bird swimming across the river 

 at a point about fifty yards below us. It bore some resem- 

 blance to a small duck, but its bill was shorter, stouter and 

 not so flat as a duck's, and its plumage was somewhat diflfer- 

 ent from that of any duck we had ever seen. The bird swam 

 steadily across the river on a " bee line " until it was within 

 ten feet of a clump of cat-tails on the west bank; then it dis- 

 appeared as if by ma.gic and we saw nothing more of it for 

 some little time. The suddenness and manner of the bird's 

 disappearance at once convinced us that it was a grebe or diver 

 and we therefore remained motionless in our boats, hoping to 

 see it reappear in that vicinity. It was fully two minutes, 

 however, before the little feathered amphibian emerged from 

 the water, and when it did so. it was many yards distant from 

 the point where it had disappeared, and was swimming rap- 

 idly away down the river. We knew that it would be madness 

 to attempt pursuit, so we resumed our fishing. A few minutes 

 later another grebe came swimming down the river towards 

 us. As soon as this bird caught sight of our boats, however, it 

 also dove, but instead of sinking gradually out of sight as the 

 first one had done, it sprang up three or four feet into the air, 

 as if to get a good start, and then plunged straight down into 

 the water with a splash. This was the last we saw of this sec- 

 ond diver. Both birds w-ere Pied-billed Grebes, and we were 

 informed by the old hermit that this species is of common oc- 

 currence in summer all along the marshy portion of the Oton- 

 abee. During my stay in camp I saw several more of these in- 

 teresting little divers ; in fact a pair of them used to appear 

 on the river in front of our hut every morning just at sunrise. 

 Two other species of grebes are of quite common occur- 

 rence near the Otonabee River and the adjacent marshes at the 



