PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 407 



tional matter even while his mate is sitting. The hollow in which the eggs lie is 

 barely above water-level, and is generally wet, and the eggs are usually covered 

 with weed when the incubating bird is not on. (PI. LXXVI.) The eggs are usually 4, 

 less commonly 3 or 5, while exceptionally 6, 7, 8, and even 9 eggs have been found 

 in a nest (Zoologist, 1912, p. 427), but it seems improbable that they can have been 

 laid by one female. They have a chalky surface, sometimes deposited in lumps, but 

 when fresh are often a pale bluish or greenish white, though rapidly stained by 

 contact with weeds to some shade of reddish brown or sepia-brown. Very excep- 

 tionally black eggs have been recorded. (PI. W.) Both parents take part in 

 incubation (E. Tristram and W. F. Dewey), and the period is estimated by the 

 latter at four weeks : this is confirmed by Tristram, but Naumann gives it as 

 three weeks only. Average size of 82 eggs, 2-20 x 1-44 in. [56 x 36'7 mm.]. The 

 breeding season is variable : some birds have been known to begin laying at the 

 beginning of April, but as a rule it is not till the end of the month or in May 

 that the first clutches are to be found. As this species sometimes, at any rate, 

 rears two broods in the season, it is not surprising that eggs have been met with 

 through June, July, and even in August, while eggs still unhatched have been met 

 with on 1st September. [F. c. R. J.] 



5. Food. Fish, aquatic insects and aquatic vegetation. The young are 

 fed by both parents on small fish. [w. p. p.] 



REDNECKED-GREBE [Col^nibus griseigena Boddaert; Podicipes 

 griseigena (Boddaert). French, grebe jou-gris ; German, Rothalsiger-Lappen- 

 taucher; Italian, svasso collo-rosso], 



I. Description. The rednecked-grebe hi its nuptial dress may at once 

 be distinguished by the white-bordered blue-grey arc at the side of the head ; in 

 its winter dress it recalls the great crested-grebe, from which it may at all times 

 be distinguished by having brown instead of white parapteral feathers. The sexes 

 are alike, and there is a striking seasonal change of coloration. (PI. 176.) Length 

 18 in. [457 mm.]. Beak black, yellow at the base ; iris carmine ; feet externally 

 greenish black, internally dull yellowish. The upper parts are of a dark brown 

 washed with grey. The feathers of the crown are elongated, and almost black in 

 colour, while the throat and side of the head are of a blue-grey, with a more or less 

 well-defined white line running along the upper boundary of this area below the 

 eye. The fore-neck and breast are of a rich chesnut, and the under parts are white, 



