440^ ANSERES. COLYMBID^. 



in the sunshine, secluded and secure. I judge this 

 to be their habit, from the pleasure a bird I kept 

 some few weeks alive used to feel in lying on the 

 weeds placed for him by the side of a bowl of water, 

 in which he fed. He would there repose for hour 

 after hour, doubled up like an antelope on the grass, 

 with its head and neck curved, — if I may compare 

 beings so dissimilar, — in the graceful attitude in 

 which I made my drawing, now in the hands of the 

 Zoological Society. The food given to my bird was 

 Guinea-corn. After it had been softened in the 

 water, it ate it readily. The seeds of aquatic plants 

 may be considered, therefore, quite as much as water 

 insects and mollusca, its accustomed food. The eye, 

 which is dark and bright, like a gazelle's, has a thick 

 orbit of that fleshy character, to which pigeon-fan- 

 ciers give the name of putty-eye, in their favourite 

 birds." 



WHITE- WINGED GREBE* 



Diver. 

 Podicei^s Doniinicus. 



Colymhus Dommicus, Linn. 



Pocliceps Dominicus, Lath. — Spix. Av. Br. 101, 



The ponds of the cattle-pens are the favourite 

 resorts of this little Grebe. I have been most 



* Length 9 inches, expanse 14, flexure 3-^, tail 0, rictus 1.^, tarsus 

 1^, middle toe If, lateral breadth of tarsus -5^, breadth of toe -3%. 



