ON THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE 67 



ON THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE AS A 

 SCOTTISH BREEDING SPECIES. 



By Evelyn V. Baxter and Leonora Jeffrey Rintoul. 



One of the most interesting, though one of the most difficult, 

 branches of Ornithology is the study of the extension of 

 breeding range of certain birds, their centres of dispersal, 

 their routes of arrival, and the reasons for the spread of the 

 species. Within the last few decades Scottish ornithologists 

 have watched with interest the spread of various birds 

 through the country. Dr Harvie-Brown dealt ably with that 

 of the Starling, Tufted Duck, Fulmar, etc., but there still 

 remain several of which the increase seems to us sufficiently 

 interesting and important to be placed on record. In this 

 paper we propose to deal with the Great Crested Grebe 

 {Podiceps cristatus cristatus), which has now become fairly 

 plentiful as a breeding species in Central and Southern 

 Scotland. We shall give a chronological list of the breeding 

 places known to us, with the first date of colonisation as far 

 as we have been able to ascertain it, subsequently dealing 

 more fully with the records arranged under faunal areas and 

 counties. We are aware that this list must, of necessity, be 

 incomplete, and shall be very grateful to any readers who, 

 having knowledge of other nesting places of the Great 

 Crested Grebe in Scotland, would send us records of the 

 same. When dealing with the early records of the Great 

 Crested Grebe as a breeding species in Scotland, we are 

 confronted by considerable difficulties and some contradictory 

 statements. Fleming in his History of Brit. Ajtimals, p. 131 

 (1828), says: "It seems to be stationary even in Zetland." 

 In view of the scarcity of present-day records from Shetland, 

 where Buckley and Evans {Fauna of Shetland, p. 208) record 

 it as an occasional visitor only, while during all the years of 

 his work there Saxby saw the species but once {Birds of 

 Shetland, p. 272), it would seem probable that Fleming's 

 statement with regard to Zetland at any rate was based on 



