BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 459 
• 
THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 
Podicipes cristatus (Linnaeus). 
Local name — ^Large Grebe. 
A very local resident, and an irregular visitor from Autumn to spring. 
In 1843 Sir William Jardine writing of the Great Crested 
Grebe says : " Although Mr. Heysham has recorded the 
occurrence of this bird in Cumberland, we have never been so 
fortunate as to meet with it on the border during summer. 
It may be considered, indeed there, and in Scotland, rather 
as a winter visitant, and that in no great abundance."* 
Dr. Grierson was told by Thomas Maxwell of AUanton 
Mill that a " Large Grebe " was obtained on the Nith about 
1856.t 
William Hastings exhibited a specimen of the Great 
Crested Grebe from Lochmaben, to the Dumfriesshire and 
Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society on 
February 14th, 1871, and stated that :— " it is very rarely 
seen in this part of the country." During the severe winter 
of 1878-1879 a bird of this species, shot locally, was sent to 
him for preservation, J and in January, 1891, another was 
shot near Gretna § ; while a specimen was obtained in 
January, 1892, in the estuary of the Nith.|| 
The earliest record of the breeding of the Great Crested 
Grebe in Dumfriesshire, of which I am aware, is in the 
summer of 1891, when Mr. George Johnstone saw a young 
bird with its parent on the Castle Loch (Lochmaben 
* Nat. Lib., 1843, Vol. XIV., p. 202. 
t Grierson's MS. Notes, October 17th, 1862. 
X Trans. D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc, December 5th, 1879. 
§ Scot. Nat., 1891, p. 95. 
II Dumfries Courier and Herald, April 26th, 1892. 
% R. Service's MS. Diary, August 16th, 1891. 
