RED-NECKED GREBE. 249 
upright on their legs. Ungainly and awkward as these 
illustrations, and stuffed specimens in similar attitudes, 
appear, the Great Crested Grebe is an elegant and 
graceful bird when walking. The neck is curved, the 
body inclined forward, and the leg is flexed at the heel 
(suffrago) so that the tarsus is clear of the ground, with 
which it forms an acute angle, and the bird actually 
walks upon its toes. The bird’s movements on land, 
though not rapid, are perfectly easy and natural. 
Despite the protection extended to them by the 
Cheshire County Council, the Grebes are much molested 
on some of the meres, and do not always succeed in 
getting off their young until late in the season. At 
Redes Mere in 1899 some eggs were not hatched until 
the end of the third week in August, and on September 
25th, 1897, we saw a young bird at Pickmere which 
could not have been more than three weeks old. 
RED-NECKED GREBE. 
PODICIPES GRISEIGENA (Boddaert). 
Off the Cheshire shores, as elsewhere on the west 
coast of England, the Red-necked Grebe is a rather 
rare winter visitor. Brockholes says it is occasionally 
obtained in the estuary of the Dee,! and there is one 
in Mr. L. Jones’s collection which he shot at Hilbre 
Island. On December 20th, 1898, we watched a Grebe 
feeding in Parkgate Gut, in the Dee Estuary. It took 
wing before we could get near enough to identify it 
with certainty, but it was undoubtedly either a Red- 
necked or a Slavonian Grebe. 
1 Brockholes, op. cit. p. 15. 
