15 



Mr. J. Warren Jacobs, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, watched 

 a Pied-billed Grebe diving in the clear water of Tenmile Creek, 

 south of Waynesburg. He was with a companion, and both 

 threw stones at the bird, not to injure it but to see it dive. 

 They followed it, one on either side of the creek. It came up 

 twice near where Mr. Jacobs stood on a high bank. It used its 

 wings both in rising and diving. Mr. Jacobs says : 



While it was under water, we moved to where we surmised the bird 

 would appear, and sometimes we guessed right. 



As some authorities insist that European grebes do not use 

 the wings under water, some evidence from European sources 

 may be introduced to show that this statement is erroneous. 



Johns, writing of the Little Grebe, says: 



It seeks safety, and this it finds first by diving and then by propelling 

 itself by its wings under water. 



He describes a large, beautiful spring, clear as crystal, and 

 says: 



I was once bending over the bank of this spring with a friend, watching 

 the water some 5 or 6 feet down, . . . when there suddenly passed 

 between us and the bottom a form so strange that we were at first doubt- 

 ful to what class of animals we should refer it. In reality it was a Dab- 

 chick, which, alarmed probably by the noise 'of our conversation, was 

 making for a place of safety. As it passed within 2 or 3 feet of our faces, 

 we could distinctly see that it propelled itself by its wings. l 



The bird did not see them, so was not greatly frightened. 



My assistant, Mr. Arthur J. Parker, says that once on the 

 Trent River in England he watched a Little Grebe swim 

 directly under a bridge on which he was standing and about 3 

 feet below the surface. The progress looked more like flying 

 than swimming, the feet were not visible, but the wings 

 were used in a uniform succession of strokes, being quite 

 widely though perhaps not fully expanded for each propulsion. 

 More evidence might be given, but enough has been adduced 

 to disprove the assertion that grebes do not use their wings in 

 under-water progression. 



1 Johns, Rev. C. A.: British Birds in their Haunts, 1909, p. 303. 



