318 THE HORNED GREBE. 



hundred yards. In December and January I have never procured any 

 having the least remains of their summer head-dress; but by the 10th of 

 March, when they were on their journey towards the north, the long 

 feathers of the head were apparent. These tufts seem to attain their full 

 development in the course of a fortnight or three weeks, the old birds 

 becoming plumed sooner than the young, some of which leave the country 

 in their winter dress. 



On the ground, this species is not better off than the Dobchick, it being 

 obliged to stand nearly erect, the hind part of the body resting, and the tarsi 

 and toes extended laterally. They dive with great celerity, and when once 

 acquainted with the effects of the gun, are not easily shot. A report is at 

 times sufficient to make the old birds dive at once, although they may be 

 quite beyond the reach of a shot. The young birds are more easily procured 

 at their first appearance; but the most efficient method of obtaining them is 

 to employ fishing nets, in the meshes of which they become entangled. 



Excepting a species of Hawk nearly allied to Circus cyaneus, I know of 

 no other bird that has the eye of such colour, the iris being externally of a 

 vivid red, with an inner circle of white, which gives it a very singular 

 appearance. On attentively examining the eyes of our Divers and Grebes, 

 I have not found any with similar eyes. The Horned Grebe does not seem 

 to see better than any other species, nor does it appear to be more diurnal 

 than the rest, nor are the objects on which it feeds more minute, for I have 

 found as small seeds in the stomach of the large Grebe as in that of the 

 present species. The reason of this strange colouring of the iris, therefore, I 

 am unable to conjecture. 



Although the greater number of these birds go far northward to breed, 

 some remain within the limits of the United States during the whole year, 

 rearing their young on the borders of ponds, particularly in the northern 

 parts of the State of Ohio, in the vicinity of Lake Erie. Two nests which 

 I found were placed at a distance of about four yards from the water's edge, 

 on the top of broken down tussocks of rank weeds. The materials of which 

 they were composed were of the same nature, and rudely interwoven to a 

 height of upwards of seven inches. They were rather more than a foot in 

 diameter at the base, the cavity only four inches across, shallow, but more 

 neatly finished with finer plants, of which a quantity lay on the borders, and 

 was probably used by the bird to cover the eggs when about to leave them. 

 There were five eggs in one nest, seven in the other; all contained chicks 

 (on the 29th of July); they measured one inch and three-quarters in length, 

 by one inch and two and a half eighths; their shell was smooth, and of a 

 uniform yellowish cream colour, without spots or marks of any kind. The 

 nests were not more than fifty yards apart, on the south-western side of the 



