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Family PODICIPITID^l. 



Genus PODICEPS. 



Colymbns apud Brisson, Orn. vi. p. 34 (1760). 

 Podiceps, Latham, Gen. Synops. Suppl. p. 294 (1787). 

 Bytes apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 41 (1829). 

 Pedeaithya apud Kaup, op. cit. p. 44 (1829). 

 Proctqpus apud Kaup, op. cit. p. 49 (1829). 

 Lophaithyia apud Kaup, op. cit. p. 72 (1829). 

 Sylbeocyclus apud Bonaparte, Comp. List, p. 64 (1838). 

 Tachybaptus apud Reichenbach, Syst. Av. p. ii. (1851). 

 JEchmopliorus apud Coues, Proc. Philad. Acad. 1862, p. 229. 



The Grebes inhabit the Palsearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian, Nearctic, and Neotropical 

 Regions, five species being found in the Western Palsearctic Region. In habits the Grebes 

 resemble the Colymbidee in many respects; and, like them, they are essentially diving and fish- 

 eating birds, and swim lightly and with ease, diving also extremely well, and to a large extent 

 obtaining their food below the surface of the water. The larger species can scarcely walk, but 

 shuffle along like the Divers ; but several of the smaller species walk and even run with tolerable 

 ease. Their flight is tolerably swift ; but they rise with some difficulty from the water, and are 

 said to be unable to rise from the ground. They feed on fish, aquatic insects, shell-fish, and 

 even, it is said, on frogs. Their call-note, which is usually uttered in the evening or at night, 

 is tolerably loud, but not unpleasant. 



Their nest is a large mass of damp aquatic herbage, usually floating on the water ; and the 

 eggs, which are numerous, are dull yellowish white, sometimes with a green tinge, the surface 

 of the shell being chalky and the inside greenish. When first laid they are clean, but soon 

 become discoloured by the damp and rotting herbage ; and I have seen them so stained that 

 they appeared uniformly dark brown in colour. 



Podiceps cristatus, the type of the genus, has the bill about as long as the head, slender, 

 compressed, tapering to a sharp point; nostrils linear, oblong, pervious, subbasal; wings small, 

 narrow, acute, the -second quill longest, the scapulars large and oblong ; tail consisting of short, 

 feeble, downy feathers ; tibia bare for a short distance ; tarsus short, compressed, anteriorly 

 scutellate ; hind toe small, elevated, with two lateral membranes, of which the outer and upper 

 one is very narrow ; anterior toes long, connected at the base by a membrane, and having on 

 both sides an expanded margin marked with oblique parallel lines; claws flat, that on the 

 middle toe broader and, with that on the outer toe, serrulate. 



By some authors the Little Grebe has been separated from its larger allies and placed in 

 the genus Tachybaptus or Sylbeocyclus, on account of its having the body shorter and more full, 

 and its bill being shorter than its head ; but I have deemed it unadvisable to separate it from 

 the other European Grebes, and therefore retain it in the genus Podiceps. 



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