118 DUSKY GREBE. 
These birds feed on shell-fish, crustacea, insects, and parts 
of plants, procured by diving. They also appear to swallow 
some of their own feathers at times. 
The nest of this species is large—a mass of reeds, sedge, 
and other water-plants, placed by the edge of the liquid 
element, or floated on the surface among the rushes or other 
such vegetation that there has its natural growth. 
The eggs appear to be from two to four or five in number. 
They are of a white colour, with a faint tinge of blue. 
Male; length, one foot one inch and a half; the base of 
the under mandible is pale yellowish pink, the tip, greyish, 
the remainder black; the space between the bill and the 
eye is rich yellowish chesnut red, or orange buff-colour, and 
this bar goes behind the eye, growing gradually broader; 
iris, yellow in the centre, surrounded with bright crimson 
‘red, the pupil bordered with white; the eyelids and the 
feathers round the eye and those that compose the double- 
horned tuft on the back of the head are of a bright orange 
buff-colour; the tufts are somewhat erectible, and stand out 
like two ears. The forehead, dull ferruginous; the crown, 
the ruff that surrounds the head, its sides, and the upper 
part of the neck, are dusky black, with a reflection of purple 
or green; in winter dark brown; neck in front and on the 
sides, bright ferruginous orange chesnut; on the back part 
and the nape, dusky, or blackish grey dashed with ferru- 
ginous, the feathers having paler margins. Chin and throat, 
dusky black, with purple and green reflections, and a little 
mottled with white, in winter white; breast on the upper 
part, bright ferruginous orange chesnut, darker on the lower 
part; below silky white, the sides intermixed with dusky 
and orange ferruginous; in winter the breast on the upper 
part is greyish white. Back, blackish grey, the edges of 
the feathers being paler than the remainder; in winter it is 
dark greyish brown. 
The wings extend to the width of one foot ten inches; 
greater and lesser wing coverts, dark brown; the primaries 
are dark brown; the secondaries are tipped with white, forming 
a conspicuous bar across the wing when opened; the tertiaries 
are in winter greyish brown. Under tail coverts, white. Legs 
and toes, blackish grey on the outer part, and pale yellowish 
or greyish brown tinged with pale yellowish grey on the inner. 
In the autumn, from the base of the bill a stripe of chesnut- 
tipped feathers goes over the eyes to the back of the head; 
