198 Lloyd's natural history 



Nest. — A floating mass of weeds. The one discovered by 

 Mr. Robert Read in Renfrewshire, in 1889, was built, he tells 

 me, " amongst the rank herbage of a floating island, although 

 the nest was not actually in the water like that of a Little 

 Grebe. It contained three eggs, and, though they were about 

 a week incubated, they were not covered up." 



Eg-gs. — Three or four in number. Greenish- white, with a 

 chalky covering, but as incubation proceeds they become 

 stained, through contact with the decomposing weeds of which 

 the nest is made, an ochreous or brown colour. Axis, 2 -1-2 -45 

 inches; diam., 1-4-1 -55. 



n. THE RED-NECKED GREBE. LOPH.ETHYIA GRISEIGENA. 



Colymbiis griseigena, Bodd. Tabl. PL Enl. p. 55 (1783). 

 Podiceps rubricollis, Lath.; Macgill. Brit. B. v. p. 259 (1852) ; 



Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 459 (1885). 

 Podiceps griseigena, Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 639, pi. 630 



(1878); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 203 (1883); Saunders, 



ed. Yarrell's Brit. B. iv. p. 124 (1884) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. 



Brit. B. part xxvi. (1893). 

 Podidpes griseigejia, Saunders, Man. Brit. B. p. 703 (1889). 



Adult. — General colour above black, with a few remains of 

 brown edgings to some of the feathers ; wings blackish, with 

 the lesser series white along the carpal bend of the wing; 

 primaries black, the secondaries pure white, the innermost being 

 blackish like the back ; tail black ; crown of head and hind- 

 neck glossy-black, with a greenish gloss, the feathers on the 

 hinder crown developed into a hood ; sides of face, ear-coverts, 

 and throat light slaty-grey, with a streak of white running from 

 the angle of the mouth below the eye, above the ear-coverts 

 and skirting the hinder edge of the latter, where the white 

 broadens, but does not cross the throat ; lower throat, sides of 

 neck, and entire fore-neck, rich chestnut ; remainder of under 

 surface of body silky white, the sides of the body chestnut, 

 with dusky blackish tips to the feathers ; vent brownish ; under 

 wing-coverts and axillaries, pure white ; " bill black, but the 

 lower mandible and the sides of the upper mandible yellow at 

 the base ; bare space between the eyes and the base of the bill 



