9 



water. Mr. A. M. Brooking, Inland, Nebraska, says that he 



caught a wounded Eared Grebe. This bird was put in a tank 



in which in swimming under water it 



used its half-spread wings with short, 



quick strokes. The feet also were used. 



He believes that they alternated with the 



wings, but the wings were so rapidly used 



that he was not sure. The bird swam 



faster with both wings and feet than when 



Using feet Only. First and second extreme 



Holboell's Grebe does not offer many v ** of 8wimm l j ng 



grebe under water, when 

 Opportunities tO those Who Wish tO Watch using both feet and 



its under-water activities on the Atlantic j?^Jensen.) n 

 coast. As a rule, it is shy and keeps to 



wide waters, but on its breeding-grounds in the shallow sloughs 

 of the prairies it has been seen to swim very rapidly under water 

 by the use of its feet alone. In the winter of 1912 Mr. A. R. 

 Cahn of Chicago had an almost unprecedented opportunity to 

 watch the activities of this species under thin ice. Cayuga Lake 

 in Western New York, a body of water 40 miles in length, was 

 frozen over for the first time in years, and many Holboell's 

 Grebes were trapped there by the ice. A single bird of this 

 species was found alive in a small patch of open water in Fall 

 Creek, below Ithaca Falls, surrounded on three sides by thin ice 

 and on the fourth by ice strong enough to bear a man. The bird 

 could not escape, as the water hole was too small for it to get 

 headway enough on the surface to rise on the wing and it could 

 not rise from the ice. Mr. Cahn stood on the ice by the open 

 hole and watched the diving bird in the clear water below. The 

 neck was extended to its full length and both wings and feet were 

 used. The speed of the bird, he says, was marvelous, " at times 

 it being almost impossible to follow its movements." Mr. 

 Cahn writes me that the wings were about half open and were 

 used with quick strokes. 1 



Mr. Frank Walters in a letter to Mr. H. H. Ballard of 

 Pittsfield (printed in the "Berkshire Eagle," a Pittsfield news- 

 paper) tells of a capture of Holboell's Grebe on March 4, 1912, 

 in South Sandisfield, Massachusetts. The bird was in a little 



i Cahn, A. R.: Auk, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, October, 1912, p. 440. 



