416 



CITIZEN BIRD 



that he has to stand up on end. His nest is on the ground and his 

 flesh is not tit to eat, being too rank and fishy. You can hear his 

 mournful cry a mile off. 



The Pied-billed Grebe, Dabchick, or Water Witch 



Length thirteen inches. 



Upper parts brownish-black. Breast and belly white, very 

 smooth like satin. A black mark on the throat, and a black band 

 on the bill, which is shaped like a lien's. Feathers on top of the 

 head bristly. 



Feet very strange : they stick out far behind, because Grebes 

 have no tail to be seen, and the toes are different from those of 

 any other bird you have in your tables, being scalloped with flaps 

 of skin instead of webbed like those of most Swimming Birds. 



A Citizen of Xorth America, whose nest is a wet bed of broken- 

 down reeds, sometimes floating on the water of the marsh. He 

 can dive and swim under water as well as a Loon. If you could 

 catch one alive, he would make his flnpper-like feet go so fast you 

 could not see anything of them but a hazy film, as the Humming- 

 bird does his wings when he poises in front of a flower. 



Pied-billed Grebe. 



