14 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
characters by which Mr. Chapman has proposed to distinguish brachypterus 
from dominicus are very satisfactorily maintained. The males of both forms 
have considerably larger bills than the females, a fact which should be borne 
carefully in mind when birds from different localities are examined. The ma- 
terial before me furnishes, however, no male from Lower California with a 
bill as large as that of the smallest-billed female from the West Indies, and the 
difference in this respect between birds of the same sex from the two regions is 
very striking. . 
This little Grebe was first reported from Lower California by Mr. Belding, 
who says that it was “very common at San José, Miraflores, and Santiago, in 
the winter of 1882—’83, but not recognized the previous winter.” Mr. Frazar 
found it only at Santiago in a lagoon of about two hundred acres in extent, the 
greater part of which was filled with a rank growth of tule, there being but 
little open water. In this lagoon during the latter half of November the 
Short-winged Grebes were very common, upwards of a hundred being often 
seen by Mr. Frazar in the course of a single morning. Among the specimens 
obtained here are several young birds which must have been hatched in the 
lagoon. Indeed one (No. 18,270), taken November 15, is a mere chick, barely 
one-third grown and still wholly in the down. 
Although this Grebe has been attributed to the “valley of the Colorado ” 1 
River it seems probable that the resident colony above referred to was derived 
from western Mexico, where the bird is abundant and widely distributed. It 
is not known to occur anywhere in the central or northern portion of Lower 
California. 
Podilymbus podiceps (Lryy.). 
PIED-BILLED GREBE. 
Podilymbus podiceps BetpinG, Proc. U. 8S. Nat. Mus., V. 1883, 546 (Cape Region). 
Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d ser., II. 1889, 250 (Cape Region). 
The Pied-billed Grebe is common in winter about the Bay of La Paz and its 
inlets. It was also found by Mr. Frazar in September and October at San 
José del Cabo, where it “arrived? on September 12. It haunts chiefly, if not 
exclusively, the salt or brackish bays, or creeks near the coast and appears to 
desert at least the southern portion of the peninsula during the breeding 
season. This is somewhat remarkable, for the Pied-billed Grebe is said to 
breed throughout the whole of Mexico and Central America as well as most 
of South America and there would seem to be no reason why it should not 
nest with the Short-winged Grebes in the lagoon at Santiago. 
1 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds N. Amer., II. 1884, 489. 
