362 PIED-BILLED DOBCHICK. 



their gizzards a quantity of hair and feather-like substance, for which I 

 could not account, but which I at length found to be the down of certain 

 plants, such as thistles, the seeds remaining undigested and attached to it. 

 My friend Thomas MacCulloch made the same observation on examin- 

 ing some at Pictou in Nova Scotia, and I have found similar substances in 

 the stomach of many individuals of Podiceps cristatus. 



The Pied-billed Dobchicks seem to form particular attachments to cer- 

 tain ponds or small lakes, where, until they are closed by ice, you may 

 always observe a pair or a family. Opposite Henderson I regularly saw 

 a couple every autumn, and my friend the Reverend John Bachman has 

 observed a group of them for many winters in a small pond a few miles 

 distant from Charleston. They seem to have a dislike to swift-running 

 streams, and when on them keep to the eddies along the shores. The 

 curious double pectination on the hind part of their tarsi, seems to aid 

 them greatly while sitting upright on the broad leaves of water-lilies, on 

 the surface of which I have observed indented impressions after the birds 

 had plunged into the water from them. The young differ in colour from 

 the adult, but the old males and females resemble each other, only the 

 former are larger. 



Podiceps cakolinensis, Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 785 — Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. 



of Birds of the United States, p. 418. — Swains, and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. 



part ii. p. 412. 

 Pied-bill Dobchick, Niittall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 259. 



Adult Male. Plate CCXLVIII. Fig. 1. 



Bill shorter than the head, stout, deep, compressed, tapering. Upper 

 mandible with the dorsal line nearly straight at the base, curved towards 

 the end, the ridge slightly flattened for a short space at the base, narrow 

 in the rest of its extent, the sides convex towards the end, the edges sharp, 

 inflected, the tip obtuse, a little decurved. Nasal groove broad, and ex- 

 tending beyond the middle of the mandible ; nostrils elliptical, lateral, sub- 

 medial, pervious. Lower mandible with the angle long and narrow, the 

 sides nearly erect, but convex, the dorsal line very short and sloping up- 

 wards, the edges inflected, the tips narrow, the gape-hne nearly straight. 



Head rather small, oblong, compressed ; neck rather long ; body de- 

 pressed. Feet placed far behind, short, stout ; tibia bare for a very short 

 space below; tarsus short, much compressed, thin before and behind, an- 



