• GREAT CEESTBD GEEBE. 179 



water, and splashing with their wings and feet in evident 

 enjoyment. I have frequently seen them take wing, without 

 any apparent difficulty, and fly for a considerable distance, an 

 elevation of five or ten feet being occasionally^ but rarely, 

 attained. 



The adult birds on their appearance in spring are in full 

 nuptial plumage, with glossy blackish-brown crests, and rich 

 chestnut tipped ruifs. By the 26th September they were far 

 advanced towards winter dress, hardly a sign of the chestnut 

 showing, and by the i6th October the winter plumage was 

 fully assumed, the dark crests, retained at that season, con- 

 trasting with the plain white faces and greyer body tints than 

 those worn in summer. The young in down have the face 

 and neck streaked with longitudinal dark lines, which are 

 retained until they are full grown, disappearing gradually in 

 autumn. 



On the 28th April, 1884, there were two Grebes on the 

 water, which had but very slight crests and no facial ruffs, 

 heads and backs dusky, neck and underparts of a less pure 

 white than in the adults ; they did not remain here, and this 

 is the only occasion on which I have known immature birds 

 to appear in sprmg, those that arrive to breed being invariably 

 in the adult stage of plumage, although the bright colours are 

 not always fully developed when their arrival takes place at an 

 early date. 



About the end of July, 1888, four Great Crested Grebes 

 were said to have been killed among the rushes in the Cher- 

 well at Stone-bridge, about two miles above Banbury, by some 

 men who were mowing the hay-grass ; the river is there 

 rather sluggish, and choked up with rushes. I examined one 

 of these birds, which was an adult in full breeding dress, and 

 it seems probable that they were two breeding pairs whose 

 young escaped observation. 



The Great Crested Grebe occasionally appears on the 

 Thames in winter, and the Messrs. Matthews write of it as 



