United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Mellish's, which I often saw there; and, on subsequent inquiry from his son, Mr. William Mellish, he wrote in 1878 to me to say, "The Sclavonian Grebe was killed by my brother Alfred at Arnold's Pond, just the other side of the Vale Church to the one on which you were." This Arnold's Pond is the one I have so often mentioned before as Mr. De Putron's.
We have caught a good many in this way, and several entangled themselves in the threads left floating for the purpose over the stern. The cape-pigeons were so tame that they came almost on board, and numbers of them were caught in butterfly-nets. Their plumage is not unlike grebe, and I mean to have some muffs and trimmings for the children made out of it.
Our familiar Pied-billed Grebe or Dabchick disappears so suddenly, that 'Water Witch' is one of its common names." "What a lot of birds there are to watch for this fall!" said Nat very anxiously. "I only wish I knew how much more time we shall have before father and mother come for us."
From their own part of England came many that they knew; among the rest, Lord and Lady Purbeck, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, Sir John Grebe, the Drenkhards, Lady Stourvale, the old Duke of Hamptonshire, the Bishop of Melchester, the Dean of Exonbury, and other lesser lights of Court, pulpit, and field.
Common tern, knot, American white pelican, Hudsonian godwit, trumpeter swan, long-billed curlew, snowy heron, Hudsonian curlew, American avocet, prairie sharp-tailed grouse, dowitcher, passenger pigeon. Long-billed dowitcher and northern hairy woodpecker. Wood-duck, ruddy duck, black mallard, grebe or hell-diver, tern and woodcock.
De Putron afterwards confirmed this; they can only breed there occasionally, however, as there were certainly none breeding there in 1878, when I was there. The Little Grebe is included in Professor Ansted's list, and marked by him as occurring in Guernsey only. There are two specimens in the Museum and some eggs, which were said to be Guernsey, and probably were so, perhaps from the Vale Pond.
The Great-crested Grebe is a regular autumn and winter visitant to the Channel Islands, but not, I think, in quite such numbers as at Teignmouth and Exmouth and along the south coast of Devon. I have not shot this bird in the Channel Islands myself, nor have I seen it alive: but I have seen several Guernsey-killed specimens.
The coble has an exceedingly deep bow, which grips the water to a depth of some three feet, and which resembles in contour the breastbone of a grebe or northern diver. This great curve is rimmed with iron. But from the bend the lines slope upward, until at the stern the boat is quite flat-bottomed and only about three feet in depth.
This day I saw one standing in the top of a tree with the big bill pointing straight into the air and the tail also cocked perpendicularly. The toucan is a born comedian. On the river and in the ponds we saw the finfoot, a bird with feet like a grebe and bill and tail like those of a darter, but, like so many South American birds, with no close affiliations among other species.
The year of education had extended to fourteen months, and the house was in order for Edmond's return to take up his abode there with Barbara, when, instead of the accustomed letter for her, came one to Sir John Grebe in the handwriting of the said tutor, informing him of a terrible catastrophe that had occurred to them at Venice.
Word Of The Day