^-^ 



222 GREBES AND DIVERS 



length, and is a native of the western Pacific, especially in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Fiji and the New Hebrides. Of Schlegcl's petrel (ffi". 

 ncglecta), a South I'acific species, a specimen was picked up dead at 

 Tarporley, Cheshire, in April 1908. 



The fourth species, a still smaller bird, is Bulwer's petrel {Btdweria 



Indiveri), one of two repre- 

 sentatives of a genus dis- 

 tinguished from the other 

 members of the present 

 group by the long wedge- 

 shaped tail and the sooty 

 black plumage. Bulwer's 

 petrel is common to the 

 Xorth Atlantic and Xorth 

 Pacific, and is a well-known 

 bird in Madeira and the 

 Canaries. A dead spcci- 

 -- ' men was picked up near 



MOUNTED IN THE ROWLAND W«RD STUDiOS ^ ^ 



uuLWERs piiTKKL. Tanficld, Yorkshire, in the 



spring of 1837, a second 

 at Beachy Head, Sussex, in 1903, and a third in the same count\- in 

 the following }'ear ; these three specimens being the only instances re- 

 corded up to the present time (1908) of this species in the British Isles. 



Great Crested ^^ 'th that handsome bird, the great crested grebe, 

 Grebe (Podicioes "*^ come to the largest representative of a group 

 eristatus) of water-birds t\-pificd by the familiar dabchick, and 



forming not onl}' a distinct family — the Podicipedidai 

 — but likewise a separate order, the Pj'gopodes. B)- the older orni- 

 thologists the latter group was taken to include likewise the auks 

 and the divers. The auks, as we have already seen, are entitled 

 to form a distinct order by themselves ; but it seems on the whole 

 advisable to retain the divers (which are regarded by some Authorities 

 as forming a third order by theinselvesj in the Pygopodes. The grebes 

 and divers, as the group (of which the serial position is by no means 

 certain) may be called, will, according to this arrangement, be collect- 

 ively characterised by the following features : — 



In all cases the legs are situated very far back on the body, and 

 the front edge of the shank is sharpened, in adaptation to aquatic 

 habits, while the beak is alwaj's straight and pointed ; but the feet 

 may be either furnished with lobe-like expansions of skin or completely 



