Grebes 



whitish feathers in wings; front of neck, upper breast, and 

 sides chestnut; lower breast and underneath, white. In 

 winter: Lacking feathered head-dress; upper parts grayish 

 black; under parts silvery white, sometimes washed with 

 gray on the throat and breast. Elongated toes are furnished 

 with broad lobes of skin. 



Young — Like adults in winter plumage, but with heads distinctly 

 striped. 



Range— From Northern United States northward to fur countries 

 in breeding season ; migrating in winter to Gulf States. 



Season — Plentiful during migrations in spring and autumn. Win- 

 ter resident. 



The ludicrous-looking head-dress worn by this grebe in the 

 nesting season at the far north has quite disappeared by the time 

 we see it in the United States; and so the bird that only a few 

 months before was conspicuously different from any other, is often 

 confounded with the pied-billed grebe, which accounts for the 

 similarity of their popular names. As the bird flies it is some- 

 times also mistaken for a duck; but a grebe may always be dis- 

 tinguished by its habit of thrusting its head and feet to the farthest 

 opposite extremes when in the air. No birds are more expert in 

 water than these. When alarmed they sink suddenly like lead, and 

 from the depth to which they appear to go is derived at least one of 

 their many suggestive names. Or, they may leap forward and 

 plunge downward; but in any case they protect themselves by 

 diving rather than by flight, and the maddening cleverness of 

 their disappearance, which can be indefinitely prolonged owing 

 to their habit of swimming with only the nostrils exposed above 

 the surface, makes it simply impossible to locate them again on 

 the lake. 



On land, however, the grebes are all but helpless. Standing 

 erect, and keeping their balance by the help of a rudimentary tail, 

 they look almost as uncomfortable as fish out of water, which the 

 evolutionists would have us believe the group of diving birds 

 very nearly are. When the young ones are taken from a nest 

 and placed on land they move with the help of their wings as if 

 crawling on "all fours," very much as a reptile might; and the 

 eggs from which they have just emerged are ellipsoidal — i. e., 

 elongated and with both ends pointed alike, another reptilian 

 characteristic, it is thought. But oology is far from an exact 

 science. As young alligators, for example, crawl on their 



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