466 THE BIEDS OF MANITOBA THOMPSON. 



covered with bare red skin ; in examining the eye, I squeezed out a leech, 

 that was sometimes like a No. 4 shot or again like a small needle. 



On June 3, 1884, while traveling on the Birtle trail from Rapid City 

 I noticed a pair of Horned Grebes in a small pond. I fired and disabled 

 one. On wading in I found it was shot in the eye and was perfectly 

 blind, though otherwise unhurt. Having heard sundry curious theories 

 about the way in which these birds move their feet, I kept it alive for 

 observation. When ordinarily swimming the feet strike out alter- 

 nately, and the progression is steady, but sometimes both feet struck 

 together, and then the movement was by great bounds and was evi- 

 dently much better calculated to force the bird over an expanse of very 

 weedy water or through any tangle of weeds or rushes in which it 

 might have found itself. When lifted out of the water the feet worked 

 so fast as to be lost to the eye in a mere haze of many shadowy feet 

 with one attachment. When placed on the ground it was perfectly 

 helpless. At nights I laid it by my side on the grass, and each morn- 

 ing I found it still in the same place. During the day I carried it in a 

 bucket swung under the wagon. It often tried to leap out of this, 

 but never succeeded. On the second day of its captivity it laid an 

 egg, which was like a duck's egg with a heavy coat of whitewash. On 

 the third day, after the wagon had crossed some rough ground, which 

 had set the pail violently swinging, I found the grebe was gone. All 

 the specimens of cornutus that I have examined have the eye all blood- 

 red except a thin ring of white which immediately surrounds the pupil. 



On August 21, 1884, shot a Horned (?) Grebe in the lake southwest of 

 here. Several young ones were seen. No doubt the species breeds 

 there as in all the small drainage ponds in this region, although they 

 are totally devoid of fish. The only animal food available for the 

 grebes in there is ambly&tomse, frogs, leeches, and insects. 



Disliisbet Seekeep or Little Diver. This bird differs but little from Mr. Pennant's 

 small grebe. It weigbs 5^ ounces, harbors in our fresh waters, where it builds a 

 floating nest of grass, laying from three to five eggs of a white color ; the heat of the 

 bird causing a fermentation in the grass, which is a foot thick, makes a kind of hot- 

 bed, for (please to observe) the water penetrates through the grass to the eggs. 

 (Hutchins's Observations on Hudson Bay. MSS. 1782.) 



4. Colymbus nigricollis californicus. American Eared Grebe. 



Common summer resident, breeding abundantly on Turtle Moun- 

 tain and at points along Mouse River, near the boundary (Cones). 

 Common summer resident in Red River Valley (Hunter). Winnipeg: 

 Summer resident tolerably common (Hine). Breeding in great num- 

 bers at Shoal Lake and on Red River (D. Gunn). Quite common on 

 pools in prairie regions (Macoun). Very nuuierous in this bay (Grebe 

 Bay, Shoal Lake). They make their nests on the bulrushes, composed 

 of the same material. We found as many as six eggs in some nests, 

 but in the greater number of nests only four. They are very shy and 



