PIED-BILLED DABCHICK. 569 
water and fly heavily though not laboriously for some distance, and that, 
too, when they were not pressed for diving-room. With us they are more 
numerous in spring, migrating singly or in small scattered flocks of six 
or eight. In the fall flocks consisting of apparently a single brood, keep- 
ing closely together, ars sometimes seen. 
Mr. Langdon in Summer Birds, (1. c.), gives the following interesting 
and valuable notes upon the nesting habits of this species as observed by 
him in Northern Ohio. | 
‘¢ As more or less doubt appears to prevail in regard to the building of floating nests 
by members of the Grebe family, I desire here to testify to the tact that the nests of 
the present species does float, notwithstanding the skeptical ‘itis said’ of Dr. Coues, in 
his remarks on the nidification of the family. 
‘‘The little floating island of decaying vegetation held together by mud and moss, 
which constitutes the nest of this species, is a veritable ornithological curiosity. Im- 
agine a ‘ pancake’ of what appears to be mud, measuring twelve or fifteen inches in 
diameter, and rising two or three inches above the water, which may be from one to 
three feet in depth; anchor it to the bottom with a few concealed blades of ‘ saw-grass,’ 
in a little open bay, leaving its circumference entirely free ; remove 2 mass of wet muck 
from its rounded top and you expose seven or eight sciled brownish white eggs, resting 
in a depression the bottom of which is less than an inch from the water; the whole mass 
is constantly damp. This is the nest of the Dabchick, who is out foraging in the marsh, 
or perhaps is anxiously watching us from some safe cover near by. 
‘The anchoring blades of coarse saw-grass or flags, being always longer than is neces- 
sary to reach the bottom, permit of considerable lateral and vertical movement of the 
nest, and effectually provide against drowning of the eggs by any ordinary rise in the 
water-level such as frequently cccurs during the prevalence of strong easterly winds 
on the lake. A small bunch of saw-grass already growing in a suitable situation is 
evidently selected as a nucleus for the nest, and the tops bent so as to form part of it. 
‘During the day we invariably found the eggs concealed by a covering of muck as 
above described, but, as we ascertained by repeated visits at night and in the early 
morning, they are uncovered at dusk by the bird who incubates them until the morn- 
ing sun relieves her of her task. 
‘The complement of eggs is usually seven, but we took one set of eight. 
‘The above description applies equally well to any of the six nests observed by us, 
and to the dozens observed by Mr. Porter at the same locality, during the past four or 
five years; he notes, however, a few instances in which the nest, instead of being en- 
tirely free at its circumference, as above described, was held in place by the surrounding 
‘deer-tongue’ (Saggitaria ?).” 
