NORTH AMERICAN GREBES., 19 
aquatic insects, but this statement must not be accepted as fact, as 
it is based entirely upon knowledge of the feeding habits of other 
species. 
PIED-BILLED GREBE. 
(Podilymbus podiceps.) 
The pied-billed grebe, the most widely distributed species of its 
family occurring in the United States, ranges over most of North 
and South America where suitable conditions are found. In North 
America it breeds as far north as Canada, though in the southern 
part of the United States it is often local in distribution. While 
Eke Guetta. 
——— = => 
Blss3M. 
Fig. 4.—Pied-billed grebe. 
not so hardy as some of the species of more typically Boreal habitat, 
hi during the winter months it occurs to some extent in the United 
tates. 
The pied-billed grebe is known familiarly to every country boy, 
as it appears regularly on ponds and slow-running streams and is 
not restricted to the larger lakes and watercourses, as is usual with 
other grebes. The marvelous facility that grebes exhibit in diving 
is well shown in the present species, and this habit has become legend, 
associated with the name “ hell-diver.” 
At all times pied-billed grebes are birds of fresh-water habit, 
and though they may occur in river mouths and lagoons where the 
influence of the tide is felt, it is exceptional to see them on salt 
water. In summer they haunt ponds and streams bordered with cat- 
tails and tules, and in the seclusion of these growths conceal their 
nest, a mass of vegetation piled up in shallow water as a platform 
that barely projects above the surface. The strange cadenced calls 
of the males come regularly from the rushes, but the birds remain 
. 
