16 THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE 



are apt to mistake this bird for the tufted duck, with 

 which it usually consorts, and closely resembles on the 

 water at a distance. The male bird shows black and 

 white, like the tufted drake, and it is only through the 

 glass that he can be recognised by the silvery grey 

 back, which in the tufted drake is sooty black The 

 irides of the scaup, also, are white instead of yellow. 

 The female birds are very similar in appearance, though 

 the old duck gets a ring of white feathers on the face 

 round the bill. 



VII 



The latest addition to the lake populace is that ot 



the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus). In the 



spring of 1894, being on a visit to Lord 



crested Dartmouth at Patshull, in Staffordshire, I 

 was greatly interested to see numbers of 

 this fine bird nesting on a large mere in the park, and 

 conceived a strong desire to get some of the eggs, which 

 I thought it might be possible to hatch, and that the 

 young birds might become naturalised on the sanctuary 

 of the White Loch. Owing, however, to the peculiar 

 nature of the incubation of this species, which, like all 

 grebes, lays its eggs awash, and keeps them constantly 

 wet till they are hatched, that idea had to be abandoned. 

 Imagine my delight when, in November of the same year, 

 I detected a solitary great crested grebe busily fishing 

 in the White Loch. It is a very rare bird in Scotland, 

 and has only been recorded hitherto as nesting in two 

 Scottish lakes the Lake of Menteith and, if I mistake 



