GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 233 



PODICIPES^ CRISTATUS, Linn^us. 

 GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 



The following extract from Mr. Stevenson's notes, 

 written probably about the year 1861, with a 

 paragraph added in the spring of 1863, therefore all 

 prior to the passing in 1869 of the Sea Birds Preservation 

 Act (in which protection was luckily assured to this 

 beautiful bird), will be found interesting, not only for 

 the observations it contains on the life-history of a 

 species so eminently characteristic of the Norfolk waters, 

 but as showing what must inevitably have been its fate, 

 so far as this country was concerned, had salutary legis- 

 lation been long delayed. What is added as to the later 

 condition of the " loon," will be found, I trust, a pleasing 

 contrast to the melancholy record and anticipations of 

 my predecessor. 



"Of the many admirable sketches of bird life 

 which render Lubbock's 'Fauna' so charming to the 

 naturalist, the biography of the grebe or loon is 

 decidedly one of the most interesting, and the accuracy 

 of its descriptive power becomes more and more valuable 

 as the bird itself becomes scarcer through constant 

 persecution. Writing in 1845, Mr. Lubbock says, ' It 

 will not happen in our time, but perhaps the next 

 generation may speak of this bird, as we now do of the 

 bustard, in the past tense. It is sometimes shot for the 

 sake of the feathers, sometimes as pernicious to fish. 

 The eggs are always taken when found ; I have known 

 thirty or forty collected from one broad. Surely there 

 are common fish enough in our extensive waters^ and a 



*Dr. Babington, in his " Birds of Suffolk" (p. 200, note) has 

 pointed out that the ordinary spelling (Pocliceps) of this woi'd, as 

 commonly adopted by modern authors, possibly out of regard to 

 euphony, but in utter disregard of Latin, is a contraction of, or 

 misprint for, Podicipes, used by Linna3us (Syst. Nat., Ed. 10, p. 136). 

 He states that, as pointed out to him by Professor Newton, both 

 Willughby and Catesby use the latter word, and that he has 

 accordingly restored the older and orthographic form as above 

 given, in which, on such excellent authority, I do not hesitate to 

 follow him. 



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