THE HORNED GREBE. 
201 
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 
You VIII.— 26 
