BLACK-XHCKHD GREBP: 



231 



type of a third genus, with the designation Proctopus nigricollis ; but 

 here again we may be content to follow the older fashion and retain 

 the species in the original Podicipes. Special interest attaches to this 

 grebe from the fact that it has only recently been definitely proved 

 to be a British -breeding species. More than a century ago, for 

 instance, it was stated by a famous English naturalist to nest near 

 Spalding, and in the latter half of last century an adult in breeding- 

 plumage with a couple of 

 downy chicks was offered to 

 another bird-lover by a Nor- 

 folk marshman. But it was 

 not till June 1904 that nests 

 were actually found with eggs 

 and young in Great Britain.^ 

 For obvious reasons the 

 locality where this interesting 

 discovery was made was not 

 revealed ; but it was perhaps 

 somewhere in Scotland, since 

 the writer has been informed 

 that other nests of the species 

 were detected in that part of 

 the kingdom during the same 

 year. 



Unlike the Sclavonian 

 grebe, this species nests in 

 the south of Europe and 

 Africa, and such individuals 

 as reach the British Islands 

 consequently generally arrive 

 in spring, and either pass on 



or spend the summer (instead of the winter; among us. The British 

 Islands do not, however, by any means mark the extreme northward 

 range of the species, since stragglers have been seen in Iceland, and it is 

 reported to breed occasionally in Denmark. Southward its breeding- 

 range extends not only to the Mediterranean countries and North 

 Africa (where it is excessively abundant), but likewise to Abyssinia, 

 the Transvaal, and Cape Colony ; farther east it seems, however, to be 

 only a winter-visitor to north-western India and the neighbouring 

 coasts, where it is common in the neighbourhood of Karachi and 



1 See O. V. Aplin, Zoologist, ser. 4, vol. viii. p. 477 (1904). 



BLACK-.N'KCKEU GKEBK 



