Pied¬ 
billed 
^Plbes 
less frequently given but still not uncommon resembled some¬ 
what the whinney of a horse. Faxon describes it as a 
"crooning" sound, 
Still another cry was a monosyllabic toot , something 
like a short blast on a deep-toned willow whistle. This we 
heard only from a bird, presumably a female, which was accom¬ 
panied by several young and Faxon thinks that it is given only 
by the mother bird when anxious about her young. He has 
heard it several times before, always from a bird with young. 
It is wholly unlike the other two cries and in tone reminded 
me of one of the calls of the Gallinule. 
On this occasion the Grebe started out of some button 
bushes near a mass of floating vegatation which looked like 
a Grebe's nest but which we could not get very close to 
with our clumsy boat. She swam a few yards and then dove, 
leaving a chick on the surface . The chick then dove and 
soon afterwards came up in nearly the same place where the 
mother bird also reappeared and swam directly to him. 
When she reached him, she stopped and turned and 
he at once scrambled under her closed wing to her back. I 
now saw that there were at least two or three more young on 
her back nearly over the flanks. She kept the tips of her 
wings folded over them, practically concealing them, but 
they raised their heads at intervals and writhed or nestled 
about. Their bills appeared to be white with a dark bar 
near the tip. They were covered with black or blackish down 
and were of about the size of newly hatched chickens. 
