The grebes are abundant throughout the world, seemingly preferring lakes and rivers as a foraging ground rather than the seacoast.

The American Eared Grebe has an extensive range, including that part of North America west of the Mississippi Valley and from the Great Slave Lake south to Guatemala. It breeds in nearly all parts of this territory.

A few years since Professor Henshaw published in the American Naturalist some very interesting facts concerning the nesting habits of this bird, and they especially well illustrate some of its characteristics. He says, "In a series of alkali lakes, about thirty miles northward of Fort Garland, Southern Colorado, I found this species common and breeding. A colony of perhaps a dozen pairs had established themselves in a small pond four or five acres in extent. In the middle of this, in a bed of reeds, were found upwards of a dozen nests. These in each case merely consisted of a slightly hollowed pile of decaying weeds and rushes, four or five inches in diameter, and scarcely raised above the surface of the water upon which they floated. In a number of instances they were but a few feet distant from the nests of the coot (Fulica Americana) which abounded. Every Grebe's nest discovered contained three eggs, which in most instances were fresh, but in some nests were considerably advanced. These vary but little in shape, are considerably elongated, one end being slightly more pointed than the other. The color is a faint yellowish or bluish white, usually much stained from contact with the nest. The texture is generally quite smooth, in some instances roughened by a chalky deposit. The eggs were wholly concealed from view by a pile of weeds and other vegetable material laid across. That they were thus carefully covered merely for concealment I cannot think, since, in the isolated position in which the nests are usually found, the bird has no enemy against which such precaution would avail. On first approaching the locality, the Grebes all congregated at the further end of the pond, and shortly betook themselves through an opening to the neighboring slough; nor, so far as I could ascertain, did they again approach the nests during my stay of three days. Is it not, then, possible that they are more or less dependent for the hatching of their eggs upon artificial heat induced by the decaying vegetable substances of which the nests are wholly composed?"

The food of the Grebe consists of fish to a great extent, which are dexterously caught while swimming under water. They also feed upon the insects floating upon the surface, and will, when other food is lacking, feed upon mollusks.

FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.AMERICAN EARED GREBE.
(Colymbus nigricollis californicus.)
½ Life-size.		COPYRIGHT 1900, BY
A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES.

There are known at the present about twenty thousand species of fishes, which are distributed throughout the creeks, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans of the world. A few species of the open sea are cosmopolitan; the others are more or less restricted in their range. Northern Asia, Europe and North America have in common a few species of fresh water fishes. There are many others of close relationship, which indicates a somewhat common origin of the fish faunas. The same is largely true of the salt water shore fishes, which live well to the north. The fresh water fishes of South America, Africa and Australia are all different from each other, none being even closely related as are those we find in the countries of the northern hemisphere.