PODICEPS RUBRICOLLIS. 
Red-necked Grebe. 
Podiceps rubricollis, Lath. Ind. Orn., tom. ii. p. 783. 
Colymbus rubricollis, Gmel. edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 392. 
subcristatus, Gmel. ib., p. 390. 
Parotis, Gmel. ib. 
griseigena, Bodd. 
Pedeaithyia subcristata, Kaup. 
Colymbus cucullatus, Pall. (Bonap.). 
nmius, Pall. (Bonap.). 
To speak of this bird as a rarity in our country would be incorrect ; still it is so in a certain sense. Britain 
is not its true home ; and the individuals that have been seen are migrants from the Continent, and parti- 
cularly from the north. 
It is only during the spring and breeding-season that the curious tippets and high-coloured necks and egrets 
adorn the varied members of the genus Podiceps, and it is seldom in this state of finery that the Red-necked 
Grebe is killed in our island ; still it has occurred in this dress, and thus I have represented it. My Plate will 
have the greater interest when I state that the feathers of the crown and neck are drawn in their natural posi- 
tion, as seen in an individual which lived for some time with Mr. Bartlett, now Superintendent of the Zoological 
Gardens in the Regent’s Park. Mr. Bartlett informed me that the bird became quite tame and familiar, and 
in a domesticated state changed from its winter to its full summer dress, in which state it died. It is in autumn 
and winter, then, when the head and neck are without ornament, or like the rest of the body, that the Red- 
necked Grebe visits the Norfolk and Suffolk broads and other extensive meres and inland waters, and the 
larger rivers of our island : instances of these occurrences are on record too numerous to mention ; for in 
every county, from Cornwall to Orkney, it occasionally appears. In his ‘ List of Cornish Birds,’ Mr. Rodd 
speaks of it as “ quite as often occurring as the last species (P. cristatus), frequenting the same localities. 
Sometimes killed towards the spring, when some of the red feathers appear, characteristic of its nuptial livery.” 
Macgillivray says, “ I have procured this species, with all the other Grebes, in the Frith of Forth.” Thompson, 
in his work on the ‘ Birds of Ireland,’ states that he had opportunities of examining five specimens ; in the 
stomach of one of these were found the remains of several shrimps {Crangon mlgaris) and fishes, with ear- 
bones of small Gadidm, a pipe-fish {Syngnatkus acus) ten inches in length, and a number of feathers of the 
bird’s own body : none of these five individuals were adult. 
The following note on the occurrence of this bird in Norfolk has been transmitted to me by Mr. Stevenson 
of Norwich : — 
“ A regular though not very numerous visitant late in autumn and early spring, appearing on our broads 
and inland waters between the beginning of November and the middle of March. Most of the specimens 
obtained are in Immature plumage ; but I have seen adult birds in their winter dress, and some also with 
traces of the red throat. According to Messrs. Gurney and Fisher (writing in 1846), a pair of this species 
occasionally remain to breed in this country ; but these instances are, I imagine, extremely rare. A very 
beautiful specimen in full summer plumage, in Mr. Gurney’s collection, was shot at Yarmouth about the 
2nd of April, 1848, and another at Scotland, on the 22nd ; but since that date their latest appearance here 
in spring to my knowledge, has been the 18th of March. The late Mr. Hunt, of Nonvich, in his ‘ List of 
Norfolk Birds,’ states that a pair of these birds were once killed near the Foundry Bridge in this city.” 
Temminck states that the Red-necked Grebe is nowhere more plentiful than in Holstein ; and Mr. Dann 
informed Mr. Yarrell that it “ is common, during the breeding-season, on many of the shallow reedy lakes 
at the head of the Bothnlan Gulf, particularly between Pltea and Lulea. Tliey seem to be confined to the 
vicinity of the coast of the Baltic. I have never met with them anywhere in the Interior of the country, 
except in Scona and in the southern provinces of Sweden, although the whole of Northern Scandinavia 
abounds with lakes. The character of these lakes, where alone I have seen and procured specimens of the 
Red-necked Grebe so far north as latitude 66°, is precisely similar to that of the broads in Norfolk and the 
meres of Holland, where some of the Grebes are so numerous. Swedish ornithologists have confined the 
locality of this Grebe to the southern parts of Sweden ; but having procured the old and young birds in 
August, and seen them in considerable numbers, two years in succession, in the same localities, no doubt 
can exist that they are regular visitants. The eggs I did not see ; but the peasants, on finding a nest, are 
in the habit of leaving one egg, and the female will continue to lay, as long as one is left, until nature is 
