Upper parts brownish-black. Breast and belly white, very smooth like satin. A black mark on the throat, and a black band on the bill, which is shaped like a Hen's. Feathers on top of the head bristly. Feet very strange: they stick out far behind, because Grebes have no tail to be seen, and the toes are different from those of any other bird you have in your tables, being scalloped with flaps of skin instead of webbed like those of most Swimming Birds. A Citizen of North America, whose nest is a wet bed of broken-down reeds, sometimes floating on the water of the marsh. He can dive and swim under water as well as a Loon. If you could catch one alive, he would make his flapper-like feet go so fast you could not see anything of them but a hazy film, as the Hummingbird does his wings when he poises in front of a flower. [Illustration: Pied-Billed Grebe.] CHAPTER XXXII CHORUS BY THE BIRDS Swallows were perching on the same telegraph wires where they had met in May. Now it was September. There were Swallows of all kinds, both old and young, with whom a great many other birds stopped for a little chat. "In a few weeks we must be off--how have you enjoyed the summer?" asked the Bank Swallow of his sharp-tailed brother from the barn. "Excellently well! Times have changed for the better; not a single cat or rat has been seen in my hayloft all the season, and the window has been always open." "So you have changed your mind about House People?" said the Bank Swallow slyly. "Yes--that is, about _some_ House People." "I wish so many of the Bird Brotherhood did not leave in the winter; it makes me quite sad," murmured the Bluebird. "Yes. Stay-at-homes, like yourself and Robins and Finches, must feel very lonely without us," said Barney kindly; "but I think likely these House People will scatter food about, so that at least you will not be hungry--that is, unless they migrate too, as the Catbird says they sometimes do." "Dear, dear! _Think_ of it, _think_ of it!" warbled the Bluebird. "Zeay! zeay!" screamed the Catbird, flying up. "N-e-w-s! N-e-w-s! The House People are to stay at our farm all winter! The man who owns this farm, the big girl, and the little girl and boy--and the mother and father bird they belong to--they are all down in the orchard, talking about it now--how they are going to something they call 'school,' over in the village, and how that boy who hops along on one leg with a stick under his wing is going with them." "Did they say anything about the Bird Brotherhood?" "No, but I heard them say that when the snow falls they are going up to those horrid dark Owl woods to see the foxes and little fur beasts--'Four-footed Americans' our House Man calls them." "He gave me a better name than that," said the Barn Swallow, "one day when he was telling the children about the Brotherhood, over in the old barn. He looked straight at me and said a whole tree full of nice things."