PODICIPEDIDiT,. 



72: 



THE BLACK-NECKED OR EARED GREBE. 



PoDiciPES NiGRicoLLis, C. L. Brehm. 



This Grebe is rather smaller than the preceding species ; and is 

 chiefly a southern bird which at intervals pushes its migrations in 

 spring and summer as far to the north-west as the British Islands ; 

 it also visits us — though more rarely — in autumn and winter, to 

 escape the severe cold of the Continent. Individuals in complete 

 breeding-dress have been obtained occasionally in most of our 

 southern and eastern counties ; and there is even strong presumptive 

 evidence that the bird has bred in Norfolk, for Booth had "a fuU- 

 plumaged adult and a couple of downy mites " brought to him by a 

 marshman {cf. Tr. Norfolk & N. Nat. Soc. vol. iv. p. 416, footnote). 

 Northward, this Grebe is fairly common on the coast of Northum- 

 berland ; beyond the Tweed, however, it becomes scarcer, though 

 it can be traced to the Orkneys, but not to the Shetlands. On the 

 west of Scotland the only authenticated occurrences appear to be 

 those of an adult on Loch Sunart in the spring of 1866, one in Skye 

 in January 1895, and a pair shot on the Nith. A few instances are 

 on record from Cumberland, Lancashire, and the Isle of Man; while 

 the bird is a regular visitor in February and March to the coast of 

 Merionethshire, and has been obtained in Pembrokeshire. In 



3 K 2 



