J94 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



"breeds in Alaska and is a common summer resident along the Yukon ; also 

 across the American continent to the east and west shores of Hudson Bay. 

 It breeds in Manitoba, and in all suitable places throughout Ontario, also within 

 the limits of the United States (as for instance in Northern Dakota) over which 

 it is generally dispersed in winter. In Greenland, according to Reinhardt's list, 

 a few immature birds only have been obtained in the south. In winter dress it is 

 by far the commonest of the Grebes which visit Heligoland, but it is extremely 

 rare there in breeding plumage. During late autumn individuals in their 

 first winter dress are often shot, and old birds are met with in the course of the 

 winter, especially during severe cold. 



The late B. T. Booth received at various times, between the years 1868 and 

 1885, information respecting some small Grebes which annually frequented a little 

 loch near the west coast of Ross-shire, and regularly reared their young there. 

 Although prevented by squally weather from obtaining more than a momentary 

 glimpse of a bird when he visited the spot, Booth was convinced from the de- 

 scription of the bird that it was the Sclavonian Grebe. (" Rough Notes on Birds.") 

 But Mr. A. H. Evans, who with Mr. J. A. Dixon, has visited the loch at 

 intervals during the breeding season for three years in succession, and has con- 

 stantly seen both the male and female of the Grebes in question, is of opinion 

 that they are merely Little Grebes. They have procured eggs from the nest, 

 placed exactly where Booth originally saw it, and these eggs are indisputably 

 those of the Little Grebe. (" Annals of Scottish Natural History," 1892.) The 

 late Lord Lilford could not attribute to any but the present species a Grebe 

 which flew round his boat on the Nen close to Lilford, on 30th July, 1887. 

 Some of the birds shot in full breeding dress on the Norfolk Broads in the 

 latter part of April might be presumed to have contemplated breeding there if 

 undisturbed. But there is no reason, except the late date in spring of their 

 appearance, to suppose that they would have done so. A female (supposed to be 

 young) killed on Sutton Broad, with an adult and a younger male, on the 16th 

 April, 1862, and examined by Stevenson, had no eggs in the ovary larger than 

 good-sized pin heads ("Birds of Norfolk"). Indeed, this bird, like some other 

 northern species, seems to be in no hurry in spring to resort to its breeding 

 quarters, and those seen in the Shetlands in May — sometimes until the end of 

 that month — which are nearly always seen in pairs, idle their time away in deep 

 water, sometimes going nearly a whole day without searching for food (Saxby). 



The Sclavonian Grebe arrives at its breeding haunts among the Canadian 

 lakes as soon as the ice begins to break up in spring, and remains quite late in 

 the fall, individuals being occasionally seen on Lake Ontario during the winter 



