THE PIED-BILLED GREBE. 893 
cannot give a much better account of themselves. Such an exhibition is 
also very imprudent according to the first canon of Podilymbine ethics, 
which reads: “Never do anything which by implication may be construed 
by robber man as betraying interest in matrimony.” 
Sometimes, instead of diving as quick as a flash, the bird, if it thinks 
itself unobserved and wishes to escape, will settle slowly into the water 
and disappear like a perforated tin can, without leaving a ripple behind. 
Once under water the diver makes marvelous progress, apparently without 
assistance from the wings. And if it is undesirable to appear on exhibi- 
tion again, the bird requires only tO thrust the tip of the bill as far as 
the nostrils 
above thef 
water from 
time to time. 
Thinking to 
ESS Glne ii 
powers — both 
of diving 
and flight, I 
once pursued 
a company 
of twenty-five 
Pied - bills 
about a two- 
acre opening 
in the ice of 
the Licking 
Reservoir, in 
Ohio. The 
birds would 
mien tue tly; 
nor try tO €S- Taken at South Tacoma. Photo by the Author. 
cape beneath A NEST IN OPEN WATER. 
the surround- 
ing ice, preferring rather to play hide-and-seek with me in the boat. Some 
came to the surface and got a single gulp of air, while others fearlessly 
presented a broadside view, and others still paddled about with only the 
head sticking out of water. They are said, however, to take wing easily 
and to fly rapidly. On land they are unable to rise and flounder about 
therefore quite helplessly. 
This Grebe appears upon salt water more frequently, I think, than 
has been commonly supposed. It is nearly resident in this State, retreating 
