COLYMBID^. 209 



Family — Colymbid.^. 



Red-necked Grebe {Podiceps rubricoHis). One 

 of the rarest of our British Grebes, and only occa- 

 sionally killed here in severe weather. Its food 

 consists of aquatic insects and small fish, and it has 

 the peculiar habit, like all the Grebes, of swallowing 

 portions of its own feathers. A Red-necked Grebe, 

 which was killed at Burghfield, Berkshire, in May, 

 1792, is noticed by the Rev. F. O. Morris in his 

 ' British Birds/ Another fine specimen, in winter 

 plumage, was shot at Sanderton, near Risborough, 

 upon the loth of October, 1848. 



Yarrell says that, * like the other Grebes, it is an 

 expert diver, and very difficult to obtain when at 

 sea, or in other extensive waters where there is ample 

 space to exercise its powers. The nest is described 

 as placed among aquatic herbage and reeds, being 

 built of similar decayed materials. An tgg which 

 I obtained from Hamburgh is of a dull white colour 

 tinged with green, two inches in length, by one inch 

 and four lines in breadth.' 



The contents of the crop of an immature bird of 

 this species, which I examined on the 28th of Decem- 

 ber, 1867, and which had been sent from Holland to 

 Leadenhall Market, was a mass of green and rank 

 herbage, and there was no trace of its more usual food 



— small fish and insects. 



P 



