_Podilymbus Carolinensis?_
_Podiceps Carolinensis_, +Lath.+—Aud. pl. 248.
_Podilymbus Carolinensis_, +Less.+
_Sylbeocyclus Carolinensis_, +Bonap.+
[137] Length 11¹⁄₂ inches, expanse —?, flexure 4⁶⁄₁₀, tail 0,
rictus 1¹⁄₂, tarsus 1⁴⁄₁₀, middle toe 1⁹⁄₁₀. Irides hazel; beak
pale grey, marked about the middle by a broad cincture of black,
in which the nostrils are pierced. Feet black. Male: Head and neck
pale purplish-grey, darker on crown and nape: a circle of white
surrounds the eye, edged outwardly with black. Plumage at base of
beak black: a broad band of black runs down the centre of throat.
Upper parts silky black, paler on wings. Under parts light grey,
with transverse pencillings of black: vent dusky. Female: Beak,
head, neck, and breast dull yellowish-grey, the markings rather
less conspicuous; under parts minutely mottled with black and
yellowish-grey. Weight 10³⁄₄ oz.
No living specimen of this bird has fallen under my notice. It is,
however, familiar to Mr. Hill, who kindly favoured me with a preserved
specimen, and with some of his own notes. It is frequently shot in
the Rio Cobre. One which Mr. Hill had alive was put into a barrel
half filled with straw, on which was laid a large pan of water; the
brevity of its wings precluding the possibility of its getting out. It
was reconciled immediately; and fed heartily on raw fish chopped up.
It lived in apparent health three weeks, and died at length without
manifest illness, or any perceptible cause; though want of exercise or
alteration of diet may have contributed to it.
A few further particulars of the habits of this same individual are
contained in a recent letter from my friend. “The several specimens of
the Black-gorget Grebe that I have had, were brought to me from the
sedgy grounds of the River Cobre. Usually the banks of the river are
deep; but there are places in which the course of the stream has been
changed, leaving, between one channel and the other, open meadows and
banks fringed with a bristling growth of cyperaceous and other border
herbage. It will be readily perceived, that these stretches of blended
sward and sedge are the only parts of the river fitted for a bird with
fin-toed feet and short wings, to quit the water and seek the shore. It
is only there they can rise out of the stream upon the green turf; and
there they indulge in slumbers in the sunshine, secluded and secure.
I judge this to be their habit, from the pleasure a bird I kept some
few weeks alive used to feel in lying on the weeds placed for him by
the side of a bowl of water, in which he fed. He would there repose for
hour after hour, doubled up like an antelope on the grass, with its
head and neck curved,—if I may compare beings so dissimilar,—in the
graceful attitude in which I made my drawing, now in the hands of the
Zoological Society. The food given to my bird was Guinea-corn. After it
had been softened in the water, it ate it readily. The seeds of aquatic
plants may be considered, therefore, quite as much as water insects
and mollusca, its accustomed food. The eye, which is dark and bright,
like a gazelle’s, has a thick orbit of that fleshy character, to which
pigeon-fanciers give the name of _putty-eye_, in their favourite birds.”