PIED-BILLED GREBE. 213 



swam back to the river without reappearing till it was in the 

 middle of the stream. The bird must have covered at least a 

 hundred yards beneath the surface, and looked like a large frog 

 more than a bird. When fishing on the Thames, I have more 

 than once seen these birds swimming at a considerable depth 

 in the clear water below me, and have directed their onward 

 course with a punt-pole. 



Nest. A gruesome mass of wet reeds and water-plants, with 

 sometimes, in shallow water, a foundation of water- weeds 

 reaching to the bottom. 



Eggs. Four to six in number. Mr. Robert Read remarks : 

 " The eggs of birds taken on the Thames, when newly laid, 

 are of a pure bluish-white, and become, later on, stained to a 

 deep dirty yellow, but they are never of such a deep brown as 

 the peat-stained eggs from some of the Scotch moorland 

 lochs." Axis, i -35-1 -5 5 inch ; diam. 0-95-1-1. 



THE THICK-BILLED GREBES. GENUS PODILYMBUS. 

 Podilymbus, Less. Traitd, i. p. 595 (1831). 



Type, P. podidpes (Linn. ). 



This American genus differs from the other Grebes which 

 we have been considering, in having a remarkably stout bill, 

 its depth being more than hah" of the length of the culmen. 



I. THE PIED-BILLED GREBE. PODILYMBUS PODICIPES. 



Colymbus podidpes^ Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 223 (1766). 

 Podilymbus podiceps, Less. ; Sharpe, P. Z. S. 1881, p. 734, 



Harting, Zool. 1881, p. 334; Saunders, Manual, p. 710, 



note (1889). 



Adult Male. General colour above blackish brown ; the wing- 

 coverts rather lighter brown than the back ; quills light brown 

 with dusky tips to the primaries, the secondaries white for the 

 greater part of the inner web ; innermost secondaries like the 

 back ; tail dark brown ; crown of head and hind-neck blackish- 

 brown, as also the lores ; sides of face and ear-coverts ashy- 

 grey, with dusky centres to the feathers ; cheeks white with 

 dusky shaft-lines, extending down to the middle of the throat 



