558 Report of State Geologist. 



F- W. Langdon, in "Summer Birds of a Northern Ohio Marsh," notes 

 having taken two sets of eggs which he thinks were of this species 

 July 2, 1880. The}' are known to breed in numbers at St. Clair Flats, 

 Mich. Most often seen in March, April and May, October and Novem- 

 ber. In the spring of 1883 they were more num,erous in the Whitewater 

 Valley than I ever knew them. They were found from April 15 to May 

 19. Prof. B. W. Evermann reports it from Vigo County January 5, 

 1891. Mr. E. M. C. Ilobbs, Salem, Ind., has an immature specimen 

 taken alive in a barnyard near Harrisontown, Washington County, 

 about Christmas, 1897. In habits there is much similarity among all 

 the Grebes. To this one, in particular, attention has been called be- 

 cause of its habit of quietly sinking beneath the water, the bill being 

 last to disappear, leaving no ripple to mark its place upon the surface. 



3. (4.) Colymbus nigricollis californicus (Hberm ). 



American Eared Grebe. 



Adult Male. — Long ear-tufts of rich yellowish-brown; head and 

 neck all round, black; upper parts, grayish-black; sides, chestnut; 

 lower parts, silvery-gray; primaries, dark chestnut; secondaries white, 

 dusky at the base. Young. — Similar, the ear-tufts wanting and the 

 colors generally duller. (Mcllwraith.) 



Length, 12.00-14.00; wing, 5.20-5.50; bill, .95-1.10. 



Eangb. — North America from Guatemala to Great Slave Lake; east 

 to Indiana and Ontario. Breeds from Wyoming northward. 



Nest and Sggs, similar to those of C. auritus. 



This species is an accidental visitor or perhaps a rare migrant. The 

 first record of its capture in Indiana was a specimen shot four miles 

 north of Brookville by Mr. Edward Hughes, May 19, 1883. A second 

 specimen was killed at Brookville, Nov. 5, 1886. These are the only 

 specimens I have seen from the State, and I do not know that it has 

 been taken farther eastward. Dr. Brayton says it is a winter visitor 

 on Lake Michigan. Mr. Eidgway says it may possibly breed in Illi- 

 nois. Mr. J. Grafton Parker has twice noted it in Cook County near 

 the Indiana line, but he records it as extremely rare. One day during 

 April, 1890, a flock of six flew over Mud Lake like a flock of ducks. 

 He supposed he was shooting into a flock of ducks, and one fell, prov- 

 ing to be a grebe of this species. He also observed one on the Calu- 

 met Eiver a half-mile from the Indiana line near Hammond. Mr. N. S. 

 Goss, in "The AuF' for January, 1884, pp. 18-20, gives a very interest- 

 ing description of the breeding of about one hundred pairs of these 



