60 BULLETIN 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



in which it is so expert that it frequently escapes the aim of the 

 hunter by disappearing so rapidly at the discharge of a gun that 

 it is safely below the surface before the shot from the shell can reach 

 it. In the breeding season the males utter a loud, rolling, sonorous 

 call that carries over the water for long distances. 



The Antillean grebe is distinguished from the form of pied-billed 

 grebe found in the United States by faintly darker color and slightly 

 smaller size. In 8 males from Hispaniola the wing ranges from 

 120.1 to 124.5 mm., and in 3 females from 113.0 to 114.4 mm. The 

 North American bird, in which the wing in males ranges from 128.1 

 to 133.7 mm. and in females from 116.0 to 126.5 mm., may occur 

 as a winter migrant as it passes south at that season into Cuba. 

 Three skins of antillarum taken at Fort Liberte, February 14 and 

 15 by Poole and Perrygo which have the streakings of the young 

 plumage on the sides of the head and neck, though in bodily size 

 fully grown, differ conspicuously from skins of P. p. podiceps in the 

 same stage of development in much darker coloration above and on 

 the sides. The difference, in fact, is so striking that it demonstrates 

 effectively the distinctness of the two races. 



Cherrie secured one of these grebes on the Ozama Kiver near Santo 

 Domingo City, April 26, 1895. Verrill considered it rare along the 

 Rio Camu in the vicinity of La Vega. Peters found two on Laguna 

 Flaca, several miles south of Cabrera, on March 10, 1916. Abbott 

 shot a male on Laguna del Diablo, near Rojo Cabo on the Samana 

 Peninsula on March 8, 1919, and reports it as breeding at that point. 

 Danforth found it in 1927 at Los Tres Ojos de Agua, near Santo 

 Domingo City, near Haina, and at Laguna del Salodillo near Copey. 

 Moltoni lists a specimen from the Rio Haina, August 14, 1929. 



This grebe may be more numerous in Haiti than in the adjacent 

 republic, since more specimens have thus far come from that part 

 of the island. In the river near Jeremie Dr. W. L. Abbott found 

 the Antillean grebe common and collected adult male and female 

 and an immature female on February 8, 1918. Dr. Paul Bartsch 

 secured an adult pair at Trou des Roseaux on April 13, 1917, and an 

 adult male at Trou Caiman on April 4 of the same year. Abbott 

 secured specimens from the Etang Saumatre on March 5 and 6, 1918, 

 and April 8, 1920. Another is marked as taken near Fond Parisien 

 on the same lake May 7, 1920. He reports the species as fairly 

 common on this body of water. A female taken March 6, 1918 was 

 evidently breeding as it contained nearly mature eggs. Wetmore 

 recorded a mated pair on the Etang Miragoane April 1, 1927, and 

 heard several other birds calling. A grebe seen by Beebe on this 

 same lake March 2, 1927 is believed to be this same form. There is 

 a skin in the Museum of Comparative Zoology taken August 14, 



