126 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



to the French word croix, which could be heard a long distance away. 

 Having come close together, they would remain in the same curious 

 attitude, with the points of their bills touching one another, as if they were 

 engaged in earnest and confidential conversation. After this had been 

 continued for about a minute, their necks would be drawn in, and they 

 would continue to float side by side in the manner described above. Early 

 in the autumn several of the birds left, but I observed one on the lake on 

 October 16th. It was in w T inter plumage, the crests and tippet being 

 almost obsolete. I have reason to believe that the Great Crested Grebe 

 breeds in others of the small lakes in this neighbourhood. — Allan 

 Ellison (Hillsborough, Co. Down). 



Eared Grebes in Anglesea. — Mr. Banks does well to express himself 

 cautiously as to his knowledge of the birds of Anglesea, for it is quite plain 

 that his knowledge of the birds of that island is only " fairly good." Surely 

 when he states (pp. 411, 412) that Podiceps nigrlcollis is resident in Anglesea, 

 and that he has watched its nesting habits in the North of Ireland, he is 

 mistaking the Great Crested Grebe for the Eared Grebe. If nothing else, 

 the statement that he "shot one in mistake for a Mallard" makes this 

 sufficiently obvious. The birds which Mr. Banks has seen so frequently in 

 bays and land-locked waters of Anglesea, during winter and early spring, 

 are P. cristatus in winter plumage. If Mr. Banks will look at the third 

 volume of Seebohm's 'British Birds' (p. 465), he will find it stated that 

 the Eared Grebe is a rare visitor to the British Islands, on spring and 

 autumn migration, though a few have been obtained in winter, while there 

 is no authentic record of its ever having nested. — Allan Ellison (Hills- 

 borough, Co. Down). 



[It is scarcely correct to state that there is no authentic record of its 

 ever having nested in England. In the ' Birds of Middlesex' (p. 244), our 

 correspondent will find a statement to the effect that in the ' British 

 Miscellany' (p. 19, t. 70) there is a representation of a male and female of 

 this species, with the nest and eggs, which were taken in a pond on Chelsea 

 Common in June, 1805. Specimens of this bird in breeding plumage have 

 frequently been met with, especially in the Eastern Counties, under circum- 

 stances which afforded presumptive evidence of its breeding. Thus, the 

 late Mr. E. T. Booth, of Brighton, had " a full-plumaged adult and a couple 

 of downy mites" brought to him some years ago by a marshman in Norfolk. 

 This fact is recorded in the ' Transactions of the Norfolk Naturalists' 

 Society' (vol. iv. p. 416). — Ed.] 



Ruddy Sheldrake in North Devon.— At Barnstaple, last September, 

 I saw at the birdstuffers some Kuddy Sheldrakes, which had been obtained 

 in the neighbourhood of Woolacombe Sands, North Devon. — F. H. 

 CarbutueBB Gould (Buckhurst Hill, Essex). 



