278 TEE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Byfield Eeservoir from Mr. O. V. Aplin. I am glad 

 to believe that the evident increase of the breeding 

 numbers of this beautiful bird in our county is due 

 not only to the enforcement of the law, but also to 

 the growing interest taken by my fellow countymen 

 in our birds, and to the decrease of the feather- 

 wearing mania amongst English ladies in general. 

 The Great Crested Grebe seldom favours our river 

 in the neighbourhood of Lilford (although I have a 

 few records of its appearance there), for the obvious 

 reason that during the summer months it prefers 

 quiet shallow sheets of water, with plenty of marginal 

 covert of reeds, to more or less navigable water-ways, 

 and when these inland lakes become frozen, our 

 bird generally takes the shortest cut to the sea. 

 The headquarters of this species in England during 

 the summer months are the broads and meres of 

 Norfolk, Suffolk, and Yorkshire, though the inland 

 waters of several other English, and certainly one 

 Welsh county, generally hold some Great Crested 

 Grebes at their breeding-season. 



Very full and interesting details relating to this 

 bird are given in Lubbock's ' Fauna of Norfolk,' 

 published in 1845, and a more recent account may 

 be found in the 3rd volume of Stevenson's ' Birds of 

 Norfolk,' edited by Mr. T. Southwell. It appears 

 from these works that the subject of this article was 

 in great danger of extermination on the fresh waters 

 of our eastern counties, but has of late years, owing 

 to the protection afforded to it by the law and by 

 various private proprietors of " Broads," become 

 fairly numerous again in its former favourite haunts. 

 When I first visited the " Broad " district of Norfolk, 

 alas! some forty years ago, in the month of March, 



