PODICIPEDIDA, 725 
THE LITTLE GREBE. 
PODICIPES FLUVIATILIS (Tunstall). 
This species—familiarly known as the Dabchick—is resident and 
generally distributed on the reedy streams, lakes and ponds of 
England ; it may even be found nesting on some of the ornamental 
waters of London, notably in St. James’s Park. In Scotland it is 
less plentiful, though found northward to the Shetlands, and west- 
ward it nests in the Outer Hebrides, while it breeds up to an 
elevation of 2,000 feet or even more in the Highlands; it is how- 
ever more frequently noticed in winter, when there is less chance of 
concealment and the freezing of the inland waters drives it to the 
coast. In Ireland it is common, and breeds in every county. 
The Little Grebe is seldom met with in the Feeroes and has not 
yet been recorded from Iceland ; while in Norway its range seldom 
extends beyond lat. 62°. On both sides of the Baltic it is rare, even 
in summer ; but it is of tolerably general distribution over the rest 
of the Continent, and is resident in the south ; as it is in temperate 
Asia as far east as Japan, and also in North Africa. Very closely- 
allied forms are its representatives in South Africa, Madagascar, 
Southern Asia, the Malay archipelago, Northern Australia, New 
Zealand, and North America. 
The nest—which is somewhat large for the size of the bird—is 
composed of and moored to aquatic plants, or shrubs; and in it 
