The Eared Grebe. j 97 



upper mandible, passing over the eyes. The sides of the body and the back 

 blackish grey, slightly mottled on the former, and lined on the latter with 

 greyish white ; these lines become less distinct as the chick grows. Dark lines 

 on the face are apparent, though indistinct, until after the young bird is full 

 grown. 



Booth observed a pure white Grebe (apparently a female from its size) on 

 Loch Slyn, Ross-shire, in March, 1869. It was accompanied by a full plumaged 

 male of this species, which he shot. 



Fam ily—PODICIPEDID/E. 



Eared Grebe. 



Podicipes nigricollis, (Brehm.) 



THK Eared, or Black-necked Grebe is an occasional, perhaps a regular, visitor 

 to this country at various seasons from autumn to spring; but it is at the 

 latter season, and to the eastern counties of England, that its visits have been 

 most frequent. 



It is recorded to have visited the Orkneys ; one was shot in Skye in January 

 1895 (H. A. Macpherson, "Zoologist" 1895, p. 66) and it has once occurred in the 

 Outer Hebrides. But it can only be termed an accidental visitor to any part of 

 the East coast of Scotland and is still rarer on the west. To Northumberland 

 and Durham it is a very rare visitor, and it occurs occasionally on the coasts of 

 Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. To Norfolk the Eared Grebe is almost entirely a 

 spring visitor. Out of thirty-three specimens enumerated in Stevenson and South- 

 well's " Birds of Norfolk," three occurred in March, twelve in April, and ten in 

 May, three occurred in autumn, two of them in August and September and four 

 in winter. In the spring of 1862 two pairs were killed on Horsey Mere about 



