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. 



Eg-gs. 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. Traits', i. p. 595 (1831). 



Type, P. podicipes (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 half of the length of the culmen. 



I. THE PIED-BILLED GREBE. PODILYMBUS PODICIPES. 



Colymbus podicipes^ 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 



