466 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
of aquatic vegetation moored to the reeds or rushes at the 
side of the loch, is often indistinguishable from a tangled 
mass of water-weeds, and the similarity is strengthened by 
the fact that the bird on leaving the nest is careful to cover 
up the eggs with weeds. Four to six creamy-white eggs 
(with a green lining-membrane) are laid, which soon become 
stained from their constant contact with the decayed 
vegetation ; and eighteen days are required for incubation. 
During autumn and winter and until early spring, Little 
Grebes are met with on the larger lochs and the smooth- 
flowing reaches of our main rivers. Miss Wallace records the 
species in her diary as seen at the Upper Loch (Lochmaben) 
on January 27th and 29th, February 12th and 13th, and 
March 10th, 1906. In severe weather these birds are driven 
to the estuaries ; and in some winters are observed more 
numerously than in others, as in 1870, 1874, and 1878-1879, 
when several were brought aHve, but moribund, to WiUiam 
Hastings* ; having doubtless been frozen out of haunts 
where previously they were concealed and inconspicuous. 
The Little Grebe is found throughout Great Britain in 
suitable locaUties and is an inhabitant of temperate Europe 
and Asia, as weU as North Africa. In most parts of its 
range it is a resident, and closely allied forms render the 
species almost cosmopolitan in its distribution. 
THE STORM-PETREL. Procellaria pelagica, Linnaeus. 
A rare and irregular visitor. 
Writing in 1843 of the Storm-Petrel Sir William Jardine 
says : " To our own observation, this is a much more 
uncommon bird than that which we shall notice next 
[Fork-tailed Petrel] ; we have scarcely ever met with 
it living."t H. A. Macpherson wrote in 1892 in his 
* Trans. D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc, December 5th, 1879. 
t Nat. Lib., 1843, Vol. XIV., p. 258. 
