LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 27 
rives October 1 to 15, departs November 25. Iowa: November 11 
(latest). Kansas: September. Northern Alaska: Norton Sound, 
leave the middle of October. Southeastern Alaska: Valdez Narrows, 
September 18; Admiralty Island, September 24. Mackenzie: Mac- 
kenzie River, October 8. Yukon Territory: Forty Mile, September 
20; Teslin Lake, October 17. Washington: Blaine, October. Oregon: 
Netarts Bay, September 9. Idaho: Saw-tooth Lake, September 25 
to October 4. California: Mono Lake, September 2 to 21; San 
Benito County, October 14. 
Casual records.—Has been recorded from Greenland, Herschel 
Island River, Yukon Territory, the Bermuda Islands, and the Com- 
mander Islands, 
Egg dates——North Dakota: 14 records, April 6 to July 7; 8 
records, June 4 to 25. Manitoba and Saskatchewan: 11 records, May 
31 to July 7; 6 records, June 8 to 10. Alberta and British Columbia: 
9 records, May 20 to July 7; 5 records, June 4 to 17. Ontario, and 
Quebec: 9 records, May 28 to June 27; 5 records, June 4 to 21. 
Nebraska : 2 records, June 29 and August 12. 
COLYMBUS NIGRICOLLIS CALIFORNICUS (Heermann). 
AMERICAN EARED GREBE. 
HABITS. 
The little eared grebe is widely and evenly distributed throughout 
western North America; from the Great Plains west to the Pacific 
coast and in most of the inland marshy lakes it is an abundant spe- 
cies. It seems to me that the name American should be retained, as 
our bird is well established as, at least subspecifically, distinct from 
the European eared grebe. 
Courtship.—During the spring migration in May the birds are 
busy with their courtships. Mr. Aretas A. Saunders writes to me 
that all the birds he saw on the spring migration in Montana were 
in pairs and that they are evidently mated when they arrive on their 
breeding grounds. Mr. W. L. Dawson (1909) has gracefully de- 
scribed their activity at this season as follows: 
It has been a blazing day, for June, ‘even in the Big Bend country, but now 
the sun has sunk behind the Cascades and the earth has already begun to 
exhale the fresh odors of recovering darkness. Most birds have properly 
tucked head under wing, and even the nighthawks are less feverish in their 
exertions; but not so with the eared grebes. It is the magic hour of courtship, 
and near and far from the open water or its weedy margins sounds the mellow 
poo-eep poo-eep of these idyllic swains. The sound is given deliberately with a 
gently rising inflection, but seems to vanish into silence at the end with a sort 
of saber-like flourish. Now and again some Romeo, more ardent than his 
mates, bursts into an excited hicko rick up, hicko rick up, hicko rick up. The 
