Order PYGOPODES. 
Family PODICIPID_2. 
ECHMOPHORUS OCCIDENTALIS (Lawrence). (1.) 
WESTERN GREBE. 
Although during the period in which I have been an observer 
of the birds in Minnesota very few of this species have been 
seen by myself, nor reported by others whose observations 
could be implicitly relied upon, [am able to record enough to 
give it ‘‘a name and a place” in the fauna of our state. I first 
met with an individual specimen in the collection of a German 
living in St. Paul in 1859, and in 1861 I saw one amongst the 
collections of Mr. Shroeder of the same city; but it first came 
into my hands by my own gun in May of 1869, on the Red 
River, and again in 1870 through the kindness of Mr. J. J. 
Jamison, an eastern gentleman of amateur scientific proclivi- 
ties who was shooting ducks in the autumn of that year at Big- 
stone Lake. It was alone, and entirely unsuspecting to all 
appearance. It was a mature male, and in good plumage, 
meeting all the measures given in the descriptions of the ninth 
volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports. Not until the spring 
of 1883 did I see one again, and then in the same locality, or 
within a few miles of it, on the Red River near Moorhead. It 
has been several times reported without any verifications, one 
of which was presumptively reliable, but as the party did not 
regard its identification of sufficient importance to give me an 
opportunity to endorse his own, I made no record of it amongst 
my notes. In 1872, while collecting extensively in Santa Clara 
county, California, I found it common for the species in Drink- 
water Lake, a sort of lagoon some 12 miles south of San Jose 
and a few miles within the limits of Sacramento, and in several 
other kindred localities; but exceedingly common in March at 
