THE PIED-BILLED DOBCHICK. 
209 
ing from the ground, and was afterwards given to my young friend, who 
presented it beautifully prepared to me. 
While I was at Philadelphia, my learned and staunch friend the late Dr, 
Richard Harlan, received two Pied-billed Grebes alive, which had been 
caught in a fishing-net on Brandywine creek. We placed them in a large 
tub of water, where we could see all their subaqueous 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. When placed 
on the carpet, they ran awkwardly half erect, for a distance of a few feet, 
tumbled over, and scrambled along with the aid of their wings. Nothing 
could induce them to eat, and after a day or two of captivity, the little 
creatures were taken to the Delaware, and set at liberty. 
This bird retires to rest on the floating beds of rushes met with in ponds, 
or on the edges of the shores ; and in such places you may see it sitting 
upright, and dressing its plumage in the sunshine. They are extremely 
unwilling to rise on wing, unless during their migrations, or when chasing 
each other at the pairing season, which commences in March, when they 
manifest a good deal of pugnacity. On such occasions, the males fly, dive, 
and rise again on wing, in the manner of the Foolish Guillemot. While 
travelling, they pass rapidly through the air, at times at a considerable 
elevation, when the movements of their wings produce a sound like that of a 
Hawk stooping on its prey. They are seldom found in parties of more than 
six or seven. The idea of migrating by water is quite absurd. How long 
would it take aDobchick to swim from the mouths of the Mississippi to the 
head waters of the Ohio ; and when arrived there, after six or seven weeks 
of constant paddling, how is he to proceed farther ? Yet it is well known 
that they breed farther north, and are general on the southern waters early 
in October. 
The food of the Pied-billed Dobchick consists of small fry, plants, seeds, 
aquatic insects, and snails ; along with which they swallow gravel. 
They seem to form particular attachments to certain ponds or small lakes, 
where, until they are closed by ice, you may always observe a pair or a 
family. Opposite Henderson I regularly saw a couple every autumn, and 
my friend the Reverend John Bachman has observed a group of them for 
many winters in a small pond a few miles distant from Charleston. They 
seem to have a dislike to swift-running streams, and when on them keep to 
the eddies along the shores. The curious double pectination on the hind 
part of their tarsi, seems to aid them greatly while sitting upright on the 
broad leaves of water-lilies, on the surface of which I have observed indented 
Vol. VIII.— 27 
