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Art. XIV. — Notes on the Habits of Podiceps cristatus. 

 By W. T. L. Tr AVERS, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, June 25, 1870.] 



Amongst the birds which frequent the inland lakes of the Middle Island are 

 two species of Grebe, namely, the Podiceps cristatus, or Crested Grebe, and 

 the Podiceps minor, or Dab-chick. It is only of late years that ornithologists 

 have cleared nj) the confusion in which the classification of the birds of this 

 family was left by earlier writers, who had fallen into perhaps pardonable 

 errors, in consequence of the great changes of plumage which they exliibit at 

 various ages and seasons, many of the more beautiful and apparently distinctive 

 features being now found to exist only during the breeding season. It was, 

 indeed, for some time matter of controversy between Mr. Walter BuUer, one 

 of our chief authorities on the ornithology of New Zealand, and Professor 

 Finsch, of Vienna, whether the Grebe named by the former '■^Podiceps Uectori," 

 in honour of Dr. Hector, was or was not identical with the European Podiceps 

 cristatus ; and it was not until Mr. Duller had, under the light of the learned 

 professor's suggestion, examined an extended siiite of specimens, that he felt 

 himself justified in concurring in the latter's conclusions in reference to this 

 matter. He still, however, expresses a belief that we have, in this country, a 

 distinct species of Crested Grebe, distinguishable from Podiceps cristatus by a 

 permanent difference in the colour of the under parts of the body, but whether 

 this distinction will be maintained after a full investigation, I am unable to 

 decide. Until Mr. Buller's proposed distinction has been established, however, 

 I must treat all the birds observed by me as belonging to the one species. 



Podiceps cristatus is found at all seasons of the year upon Lake Guy on, a 

 small lake in the !N"elson Province, lying close under the Spencer Mountain 

 Range, and upon the borders of which the station buildings connected with a 

 run occupied by me are situated. The water of this lake is generally very 

 wai-m, and even in severe seasons, has never been frozen over. To this fact I 

 attribute the cii'cumstance that some of these birds are to be found ujion it 

 throughout the year. There are several apparently permanent nests on the 

 borders of the lake, which have been occupied by pairs of birds for many years 

 in succession, from which I am led to infer that_, as in the case of some of the 

 Anatidce, these birds pair for life. The nests are built amongst the twiggy 

 branches of trees which have fallen from the banks of the lake, and now lie half 

 floating in its waters, and are formed of irregularly laid masses of various 

 sj)ecies of pond weeds, chiefly of Potamogeton, found growing in the lake, and 

 which the birds obtain by diving. They are but little raised above the surface 

 of the water, for, in consequence of the position and structure of its feet, and 



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