Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 165 



Sirs, — Two Eared Grebes {Podicipes nigricoUis) , male and 

 female, were shot on a large pond about three miles north of 

 this village on the 19th of September, 1899. They had not 

 quite assumed the winter dress, and in the male the sides of 

 the head were still tinged with a dark rufous colour. They 

 had not been seen on the pond previously and were clearly 

 on migration ; but, for several reasons, I think that they had 

 passed the summer in this country and were not merely 

 migrants which had recently arrived from abroad. The date 

 is full early for foreign birds to have reached the middle of 

 England. It is unlikely that two immigrant individuals 

 (presumably a pair) should have wandered in company so far 

 inland as Oxfordshire, where this Grebe is very rare as a 

 visitor — far rarer than the Sclavonian Grebe. The only 

 connexion between the pond they were killed upon and the 

 Thames is a small brook, a branch of one of the tributary 

 streams which flow into the Cherwell many miles above 

 Oxford. Even the Sclavonian Grebe, which reaches Oxford- 

 shire by way of the Thames, and is not very uncommon on 

 that river above Oxford, is hardly known on these remote 

 subtributary streams in the north of the county. I think 

 also that this pair of Grebes were not non-breeding birds, 

 hatched in 1898 and just over their autumnal moult, because 

 in that case neither of them would have had any sign 

 of rufous colour on the head, this colour not being exhibited 

 by the young bird in the first summer following the year in 

 which it was hatched (I conclude this is so from the exami- 

 nation of a bird shot in Anglesea on the 1st of August), and 

 not being assumed at the autumn moult. 



The organs of reproduction in the Oxfordshire birds were 

 small, but this is usually the case with birds in early autumn. 

 The only sign of (possible) immaturity shown by these 

 examples was the colour of the irides — golden yellow ; but 

 the colour of the irides of Grebes is notoriously very variable, 

 and may possibly change with the seasons. 



It seems, therefore, reasonable to suppose that this pair 

 of Eared Grebes had bred, or had attempted to breed, on 

 one of the large reservoirs of Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, 



