196 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Ranjfe outside the British Islands. — The present species is 
found over tlic greater part of the Old World, breeding in 
most countries of Europe and the Mediterranean basin, as far 
north as the Baltic provinces, Denmark, and Southern Sweden, 
across Siberia to Japan and China, and south to Australia and 
New Zealand. It occurs in winter throughout the Indian 
Peninsula in localities suited to its habits, but the African 
Great Crested Grebe seems to be different, and is known as 
Lophmlhyia tnfiiscata (Salvad). It has not been recorded from 
any part of Nortli America. 
Habits.— Open waters are the principal localities affected by 
this Grebe during the breeding season, when its nest may 
be found far from the shore, a floating mass among the 
reeds. When the nest is approached, the birds generally swim 
away at a great rate, almost as fast as a boat can pursue them, 
Md, on the latter appearing to gain on them, they take refuge 
m diving, seldom taking wing, though when called upon they 
are biids of strong flight, and fly with necks outstretched like 
a duck or a diver. Seebohm writes ; — “ Its food is entirely 
procured in the water, and consists of water-beetles and other 
aquatic insects, small fish, .small frogs and molluscs. The 
seeds and tender shoots of aquatic plants are also often found 
in its stomach ; but instead of small stones or gravel, numbers 
of its own feathers, plucked from the ventral region, are mi.xed 
with its food. It is not known that this curious habit, which 
is more or less common to all the Grebes, is intended to assist 
digestion, but it has been remarked by many ornithologists in 
widely different localities— Nauman (father and son), Meves 
(father and son), Yarrell, Thompson, Macgillivray, &c. Its 
ordinary alarm-note is a loud, clear kek, but at the pairino-- 
time another note, the call-note, may be heard — a loud 
grating, guttural sound, like the French word croix. 
The Great Crested Grebe is decidedly a gregarious bird. 
When I was stopping at Stolp, in Pomerania, in 1882, Dr. 
Holland was kind enough to pilot me to the Lantow See, 
a lake about four square miles in extent, and surrounded on 
three sides by pine forests. At one end of the lake was a 
large bed of reeds, and as we row'ed towards it we saw quite a 
little fleet of Great Crested Grebes sail out. It was a most 
