8 BULLETIN 1196, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
but June. These were collected in British Columbia, Alberta, 
Oregon, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New 
York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. The months 
of September, October, and November are best represented, while for 
the summer season there is very little material. — 
All the stomachs of the Holboell grebes examined contained feath- 
ers from the birds themselves, and in 10, feathers alone composed the 
contents. (See fig. 2.) In tabulating the food items it was found 
that in the remaining 36 stomachs feathers made up 70 per cent of 
the total. Although these feathers are ground up and passed out 
through the intestine, they are not considered as having a distinct 
nutritive value, as is explained in the introductory paragraphs of 
BI269M 
Fic. 2.—Stomach contents of the Holboell grebe (Colymbus holboelli), showing the large 
numbers of feathers normally present in stomachs of grebes. The larger mass comes 
from the stomach proper, the smaller from the pyloric lobe. 
this paper. For this reason they are not considered in the following 
computation, and the food items remaining are taken as representing 
100 per cent. Of this, 97 per cent is animal and 3 per cent vege- 
table food. 
Fish forms the most important single item in the food of the Hol- 
boell grebe, as in 36 stomachs it made 55.5 per cent of the total. Fish 
remains occurred in 23 stomachs, or half the total number examined, 
and made the sole food items in 14. Two birds taken on Barkley 
Sound, Vancouver Island, during the winter season had eaten sev- 
eral Alaska sticklebacks (Gasterosteus cataphractus), a salt-water 
species belonging to a family noted for its destructiveness to the 
spawn and young fry of other fishes. One grebe taken at Nahant, 
