8 NOTES ON THE 
I have never as yet found them in flocks in autumn, but always 
in family parties and pairs, and almost never at that season upon 
the wing. They seem to follow the water courses and migrate 
southward about the first week in November. Their move- 
ments are made in the earliest part of the morning and at twi- 
light in the evening, swimming silently along, close under the 
overhanging banks and reeds singly, from five to twenty yards 
apart. When suddenly surprised, instead of taking to wing 
they dive, and after swimming considerable distances deep 
under the water they rise close to the shore, where, concealed 
by debris, or grass and reeds, with only the bill and eyes ex- 
posed, they remain until all danger has disappeared. None 
but the closest observers can know for themselves when or how 
they leave us in fall migration. ‘Their food consists largely of 
water beetles, larve and ‘‘small fry.” 
COLYMBUS NIGRICOLLIS CALIFORNICUS (Hermann) (4) 
- AMERICAN EARED GREBE. 
I list the EHared Grebe upon specimens found mounted. in 
collections from time to time through many years of local 
observation, two of which are now in the collections of the 
Academy of Sciences at Philadelphia, I think. All were re- 
putedly obtained within the limits of Minnesota. ; 
Having met with the species at San Diego, California, in 1870, 
I had no difficulty in identifying them at once. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Head and upper part of neck black; rest of upper parts 
brownish-black; wings grayish-brown, with a broad patch of 
white; throat, fore part and sides of neck dull black, its lower 
part with some spots of the same; rest of lower parts glossy, 
silvery white, excepting the sides of the body and rump, which 
are light red; bill black, tinged with blue; iris blood red, feet 
dusky- gray exter naily, internally greenish-gray; tufts on sides 
of head orange, yellower anteriorly, and posteriorly red. 
Length, 13; wing, 5: bill, 1, tarsus, 15. 
Habitat, Mississippi river to Pacific and northward. 
PODILYMBUS PODICERS (L.). (6.) 
PIED-BILLED GREBE 
This is by far the most numerously represented species of the 
Grebe family in Minnesota. There are few ponds, sloughs, or 
lakes where ducks are found, that do not contain a few of 
them. They arrive early, and they stay late, often until only 
small openings in the ice remain before the final closing for the 
long Minnesota winter. Breeding presumably in nearly all the 
