LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 45 
gradually sink down backward, like a disappearing frog, without 
making a ripple. I have always supposed that the grebes do not use 
their wings under water, but Audubon (1840) had a good chance 
to study them in captivity and says: 
We placed them in a large tub of water, where we could see all their sub- 
aqueous movements. They swam round the sides of the tub in the manner of 
the puffin, moving their wings in accordance with their feet, and continued so 
a much longer time than one could suppose it possible for them to remain under 
water, coming up to breathe, and ‘plunging again with astonishing celerity. 
Except during the breeding season this grebe does not associate 
much with other species; it is usually seen singly, in pairs, or in very 
small parties. Dr. Frank M. Chapman’s (1912) experience shows 
that it is not always so solitary; he says: 
On Heron Lake, Minnesota, in early October, I have seen pied-billed grebes, 
in close-massed flocks, containing a hundred or more birds, cruising about 
in open water. . 
Prof. Lynds Jones writes me that: 
On small bodies of water they mix somewhat with the other water birds, 
more from necessity than from choice. Threatened danger will almost always 
result in the separation of the grebes from the ducks with which they may be 
associated. 
Rev. W. F. Henninger reports that he has seen them associated 
with blue-winged teal and black duck and playfully chasing around 
with them. 
The vocal powers of the pied-billed grebe are limited to a few 
notes, heard mainly in the breeding season, for at other times it is 
generally’a silent bird. Dr. Chapman (1908) describes its love 
notes as follows: 
Its notes, as I have heard them in the Montezuma marshes, are very loud 
and sonorous with a cuckoo-like quality, and may be written cow-cow-cow-cow- 
€0w-Cc0W-Cc0Ww-cow-cow-cow-uh, cow-uh, cow-uh-cow-uh. These notes vary in 
number, and are sometimes followed by prolonged wailing cows or us, almost 
human in their expressiveness of pain and fear. This is apparently the love 
song of the male, in which his mate sometimes joins with a cuk-cuk-cuk, 
followed by a slower ugh, ugh, ugh. 
Mr. W. L. Dawson (1909) designates the notes as “an odd bub- 
bling giggle, keggy, keggy, keggy, keggy, keggy, keggy, keggy, etc., 
rendered with great rapidity ”; he also refers to a single excited aow, 
uttered from time to time. Mr. E. E. Thompson (1890) describes a 
peculiar call note “ pr-r-r-r-r- tow tow tow tow tow” which he as- 
cribed to this species in Manitoba. 
The pied-billed grebe may be distinguished in the field from other 
grebes by the absence of white in the wings, by the general brownish 
tinge, and by the short, thick, henlike bill. 
