I04 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



throughout the winter. On the smaller lakes it is occasionally seen, but 

 must be regarded as decidedly less abundant than the Common loon. DeKay 

 and Giraud considered it as comparatively rare; Rathbun and Chapman 

 as fairly common, while the other local lists have recorded it as a rare, or un- 

 common species. I have frequently observed it on Canandaigua lake, and 

 on Lake Ontario off the Charlotte harbor where it is sometimes decidedly 

 conmion. In severe winters when the lake freezes, these birds like the 

 grebes, are often taken unawares and left stranded on the ice apparently 

 unable to rise, and flounder over the ice and snow in a helpless condition 

 till they are either captured or die from exposure. On January loth, 

 1885, a bird in this condition was captured by two wood choppers at Adams 

 Basin. On December 22, 1903, another specimen under very similar con- 

 ditions was taken in Bergen swamp, 18 miles south of Lake Ontario, and 

 in February of the same year a specimen was captured on the ice and brought 

 to the Park Aviary in Rochester. 



This is a holarctic species breeding from Scotland, New Brunswick, 

 and Manitoba to high latitudes, and migrates southward in winter nearly 

 as far as the Common loon. 



Migrations. The late David Bruce of Brockport, stated that he had 

 found this bird on Lake Ontario during every month of the year. It is 

 mainly a transient visitant, however, arriving from the north from Septem- 

 ber 19 to the last of October and passing southward about the first of Decem- 

 ber. The few which remain all winter are joined by spring migrants the 

 latter part of March, the greater number of these passing on to their breeding 

 grounds in the north before the first of June. Like many of the waterfowl. 

 however, this loon is often found loitering on the lake long after the breeding 

 season has begun, but there is not the slightest evidence to my knowledge 

 of its ever nesting within our borders. Mr George F. Guelf of Brockport 

 reports specimens taken June 13, 1899 (c? ) ; June 22, 1899 ( 9 ) ! ^^d. July 17, 

 1896 (in molting plumage). 



