8 NOTES ON THE 



I have never as yet found them in flocks in autumn, but always 

 in family parties and pairs, and almost never at that season upon 

 the wing. They seem to follow the water courses and migrate 

 southward about the first week in November. Their move- 

 ments are made in the earliest part of the morning and at twi- 

 light in the evening, swimming silently along, close under the 

 overhanging banks and reeds singly, from five to twenty yards 

 apart. When suddenly surprised, instead of taking to wing 

 they dive, and after swimming considerable distances deep 

 under the water they rise close to the shore, w^here, concealed 

 by debris, or grass and reeds, with only the bill and eyes ex- 

 posed, they remain until all danger has disappeared. None 

 but the closest observers can know for themselves when or how 

 they leave us in fall migration. Their food consists largely of 

 water beetles, larvae and "small fry." 



COLYMBUS NIORICOLLIS CALlF0RNICrS(HEERMANN)(4) 



AMERICAN EARED GREBE. 



I list the Eared Grebe upon specimens found mounted in 

 collections from time to time through many years of local 

 observation, two of which are now in the collections of the 

 Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia, I think. All were re- 

 putedly obtained within the limits of Minnesota. 



Having met with the species at San Diego, California, in 1870, 

 I had no difficulty in identifying them at once. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Head and upper part of neck black; rest of upper parts 

 brownish-black; wings grayish- brown, with a broad patch of 

 white; throat, fore part and sides of neck dull black, its lower 

 part with some spots of the same; rest of lower parts glossy, 

 silvery white, excepting the sides of the body and rump, which 

 are light red; bill black, tinged with blue; iris blood red, feet 

 dusky -gray externally, internally greenish gray; tufts on sides 

 of head orange, yellower anteriorly, and posteriorly red. 



Length, 13; wing, 5; bill, 1, tarsus, 1^. 



Habitat, Mississippi river to Pacific and northward. 



PODILYMBUS PODICEPS (L ) (6.) 

 PIED-BILLED GREBE 



This is by far the most numerously represented species of the 

 Grebe family in Minnesota. There are few ponds, sloughs, or 

 lakes where ducks are found, that do not contain a few of 

 them. They arrive early, and they stay late, often until only 

 small openings in the ice remain before the final closing for the 

 long Minnesota winter. Breeding presumably in nearly all the 



