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LATE BREEDING OF AND RETENTION OF SUMMER 
DRESS BY THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 
By O. V. Apuin, F.L.S. 
WHE fishing in a reservoir in Northamptonshire on Oct. 10th 
I saw an old Crested Grebe—presumably a female—still in practi- 
cally full summer plumage (but possibly slightly duller than in 
spring), followed by two young ones barely half-grown, which 
uttered from time to time their usual shrill piping cry, and 
exhibited the stripe-markings and the disproportionately long 
beaks and faces so remarkable in the young of this species. 
There were three or four other Crested Grebes on the water 
which, as might be expected at that date, had assumed the winter 
dress, or almost so. 
The curious point about this observation is not so much the 
lateness of the young (for, as will be remarked upon presently, 
this Grebe is inclined to breed late in the season), but the fact 
that the parent bird was still in summer dress at a time of the year 
when it should have been in winter plumage, or almost so. And 
it seems probable that the fact of the bird breeding late and 
attending late young, had actually retarded the usual change of 
plumage. And further, this looks asif it were of some advantage 
to a bird when rearing young to wear the breeding-dress. I could 
see no other Grebes in breeding-dress on the water; only one 
bird was in attendance on the young. So, presumably, the other 
parent (unless something had happened to it, which is unlikely, 
as there is no shooting on the reservoir and the boats were 
ashore for repairs) was one of those which had changed into 
winter dress. The condition of these latter birds precludes the 
idea that the unprecedented summer-like weather which prevailed 
at that season had anything to do with the retarded change. 
The Grebes on this water are nearly always later in breeding 
than they are in some other parts of the country. There is little 
or no cover until the rushes and the beds of Ranunculus, Poly- 
gonum, &., areup. The rushesare very late in coming up, and 
