118 



THB OOL.OGIS1 



A CORRECTION. 



The Pied Billed Grebe. 



In our July issue on page 107 ap- 

 pears a cut of the nest, four eggs and 

 two young of the Pied-billed Grebe 

 (podilymbus podicipes), the legend at- 

 tached to which recites that it is a 

 "Virginia Rail's nest in Marshall Co., 

 111. Photo by W. B. Loucks." 



The error is so apparent that it is 

 ludicrous. It is not blamable upon 

 the printer. It is solely the mistake 

 of ourself and occurs because of the 

 mixing of the labels on the packages 

 in which we keep our plates tied 



Tha^ Pied-billed Grebe's nest was 

 situated in the Senachwine Swanp, 

 Putnam County, Illinois, about a doz- 

 en miles from the present home of 

 THE OOLOGIST and is a very rare 

 and unusual picture; in fact we know 

 of no other published picture of the 

 young of this species, and Mr. Loucks 

 is to be congratulated upon his suc- 

 cessful portrayal of the home of this 

 curious bird. 



The Pied-billed Grebe is found over 

 most of the Southern three-fourths 

 of Northern America and the North- 

 ern three-fourths of South America, 

 ranging from Northern Saskatchewan, 

 Canada, South across the United 

 States, Mexico, Central America, 

 Cuba and South America into Brazil, 

 Buenos Ayres and Chili, and it breeds 

 throughout nearly its entire range. 



The nest, a splendid portrayal of 

 which appeared on page 107 of the 

 July OOLOGIST, is made of mud and 

 decayed and decaying vegetation, al- 

 most invariably placed in water from 

 a few inches to a couple of feet deep, 

 usually in the midst of growing veg- 

 etation, such as flags, bull rushes, 

 reeds and the like, to which it is fas- 

 tened, apparently to keep it from float- 

 ing away. 



When the birds leave the nest they 



usually, unless frightened away, cov- 

 er the eggs over with this vegetable 

 matter and so cunningly conceal them 

 that the ordinary observer would pass 

 the nest by as a mere bunch floating 

 in the swamp. More than once when 

 going through the home of this spe- 

 cies, even with experienced hunters 

 and trappers, have we pointed out the 

 black conical shaped mass sticking 

 up through the water and asked our 

 companion what it was. Usually they 

 did not know, and were much aston- 

 ished upon our seizing the cover of 

 vegetation and laying it back, expos- 

 ing the nest full of eggs, to view. %<. 



The young are able to swim, and 

 dive too, almost immediately upon 

 leaving the shell; in fact, I think they 

 can do both of these before they are 

 thoroughly dried. They ride upon the 

 back of the old bird at times, and 

 when she becomes alarmed, they will 

 seize the feathers on her back in 

 their bill and when 'she dives, will 

 hold on and come up with her in the 

 distance. The old birds are usually 

 shy, keeping well concealed in the 

 vegetation, and seldom leaves the wat- 

 er. When they do, they appear lud- 

 icrously awkward in their endeavor to 

 scramble over the land, and cannot 

 live long away from the water. Once 

 in a while however, they are found 

 a considerable distance from the wat- 

 er. I have never been able to tell 

 whether they fly out there and becom- 

 ing exhausted, fall, or for what rea- 

 sons they go there, I never knew. 



During the month of May of this 

 year several of these birds became en- 

 tangled in the fishermen's nets near 

 Lacon and were presented to me alive. 

 I turned them into an enclosure where 

 I have a considerable number of wild 

 fowl and plenty of water, and endeav- 

 ored to keep them, but invariably they 

 died within from a few days, to a few 

 weeks, I presume for want of their 



