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Abundant summer resident of general distribution; very abundant; breeding at Pembina and the base of the Turtle Mountain (Coues). Lake Winnipeg (Murray). Red River (Kennicott). Common summer resident in Red River Valley (Hunter). Common about Winnipeg (Hine). Very common on Red River, and breed in the marshes near Shoal Lake (Gunn). Portage la Prairie; common summer resident (Nash). Observed in the ponds from Turtle Mountain to Brandon, in May, 1882; commonly breeding in all the ponds about the Big Plain, being the most abundant Grebe of the region; common also from Carberry to Rapid City and thence west to Fort Ellice, and in the whole region on both sides of the Assiniboine, northward to Duck Mountain (Thompson). Abundant on Waterhen River; breeding; they give the name to the river; the common Grebe of the prairie ponds (Macoun). Shell River; 1885, first seen, two on May 3; afterwards seen every day; it is common all summer and breeds here (Calcutt). Trout Lake (Murray).

On July 20, 1883, in a lake near “The Gore,” shot a Horned Grebe. It had saved itself once or twice by diving at the puff of smoke, so I sought the cover of the bushes and fired through an opening, and as no smoke was visible I got the bird. It was an adult male; length, 14 inches, extent 24 inches; moulting; iris blood red, with an inner circle of white around it; basal region and part of lower mandible adjoining covered with bare red skin; in examining the eye, I squeezed out a leech, that was sometimes like a No. 4 shot or again like a small needle.

On June 3, 1884, while traveling on the Birtle trail from Rapid City I noticed a pair of Horned Grebes in a small pond. I fired and disabled one. On wading in I found it was shot in the eye and was perfectly blind, though otherwise unhurt. Having heard sundry curious theories about the way in which these birds move their feet, I kept it alive for observation. When ordinarily swimming the feet strike out alternately, and the progression is steady, but sometimes both feet struck together, and then the movement was by great bounds and was evidently much better calculated to force the bird over an expanse of very weedy water or through any tangle of weeds or rushes in which it might have found itself. When lifted out of the water the feet worked so fast as to be lost to the eye in a mere haze of many shadowy feet with one attachment. When placed on the ground it was perfectly helpless. At nights I laid it by my side on the grass, and each morning I found it still in the same place. During the day I carried it in a bucket swung under the wagon. It often tried to leap out of this, but never succeeded. On the second day of its captivity it laid an egg, which was like a duck’s egg with a heavy coat of whitewash. On the third day, after the wagon had crossed some rough ground, which had set the pail violently swinging, I found the grebe was gone. All the specimens of cornutus that I have examined have the eye all blood-red except a thin ring of white which immediately surrounds the pupil.

On August 21, 1884, shot a Horned (?) Grebe in the lake southwest of here. Several young ones were seen. No doubt the species breeds there as in all the small drainage ponds in this region, although they are totally devoid of fish. The only animal food available for the grebes in there is amblystomæ, frogs, leeches, and insects.

Dishishet Seekeep or Little Diver. This bird differs but little from Mr. Pennant’s small grebe. It weighs 5½ ounces, harbors in our fresh waters, where it builds a floating nest of grass, laying from three to five eggs of a white color; the heat of the bird causing a fermentation in the grass, which is a foot thick, makes a kind of hotbed, for (please to observe) the water penetrates through the grass to the eggs. (Hutchins’s Observations on Hudson Bay. MSS. 1782.)