THE SCLAVONIAN GREBE IN ROSS-SHIRE 171 



to my mind, of the disappearance of the bird, is that its call 

 is quite unfamiliar to the youth who reside in the neighbour- 

 hood of its old haunts. 



I never heard a theory of the cause of the birds disappear- 

 ance in the district supported by reasonable evidence. There 

 has been no change in the climate, or in the methods of 

 farming ; and there is no reason to think that the young 

 broods were insufficient to meet the losses sustained from 

 sportsmen, vermin, poachers, and accident. It is to be 

 hoped that observers, familiar with other districts at one 

 time frequented by the bird will communicate particulars. 

 When the facts are collected light may be thrown on the 

 mystery. 



ON THE SUPPOSED BREEDING OF THE SCLAV- 

 ONIAN GREBE (PODICIPES AURITUS,^ IN 

 ROSS-SHIRE. 



By A. H. EVANS, M.A., F.Z.S., etc. 



BETWEEN the years iSSi and 1887 Mr. E. T. Booth in 

 his ' Rough Notes ' stated under the head of " Sclavonian 

 Grebe " that he had seen on a certain Highland loch, where 

 " blinding squalls, with drifting sleet and rain, prevented 

 satisfactory identification," a bird which, if it was a Grebe at 

 all, and not a Diving Duck, was a Sclavonian, to judge from 

 the keeper's report. 



The details are more fully given by Mr. J. H. Dixon in 

 the carefully compiled list of birds annexed to " Gairloch 

 and Guide to Loch Maree " published in 1886, and are as 

 follows : " A pair of Grebes has for many years nested 

 annually on a fresh-water loch in Gairloch parish : in some 

 years there have been two pairs on the same loch ; and some- 

 times another pair has nested on a loch about two miles away. 

 Mr. E. T. Booth saw the Grebe on the former loch in 1868 ; 

 he was unable to decide the species at the time, but in a 

 letter he wrote to me on 2nd March 1885, he said that from 

 the last description of the bird that he received he came to 

 the conclusion that it was a Sclavonian. Mr. H. E. Dresser 



