BIRD NOTES IN WANSTEAD PARK. 
297 
P ROVIDED with a couple of pocket telescopes, and a 
small tin box for securing specimens, my companion and I 
start for a Saturday afternoon’s stroll. The day has been 
fine, with a fresh wind that sounds through the trees and makes it a 
pleasure to step out briskly, and gives a feeling of new life after 
the muggy weather of this season of floods and storms. 
We make our way to a park, not twenty miles from London, 
with a fine sheet of water which the wind is curling in ripples 
that break in noisy little waves on the further bank. 
Of course we look out for water-birds, as we have so often 
done before—often indeed in vain, but not always so by any 
means ; scaups, pochards, and a fine Diver, made out with 
almost certainty to be the Black-throated, have rewarded us for 
weighting our pockets with a telescope. And now, is there 
anything for us to-day ? Yes, surely, don’t you see him ? Not 
far from the shore a slender graceful bird that is down under 
water almost as soon as he is caught sight of : now out with the 
glasses, set for the right distance, and walk quickly while he 
keeps below. Up he comes again, a beautiful creature with long 
neck and long head and beak, the grey on the throat running 
back under the edge of the dark crown of the head almost to 
where the crest just projects behind, and which a puff of wind 
curls up and makes all the more apparent. Now he is down 
again without a splash or the least disturbance of the water ;— 
then we walk nearer and take out pencil and paper to note down 
the striking features as soon as he reappears. He rises again 
within easy range of the glasses and we remark the dark neck 
below the grey throat blending with wavy transverse lines into 
the pure white breast, the red colour of the sides of the neck, and 
the white on the wing joining the equally white under parts, 
giving the idea of the nearly black wings being tucked up on the 
back. The bird has the unmistakable aspect of a grebe, but 
which is it ? From the figure and description in Yarrell un¬ 
doubtedly it is the Red-necked Grebe, Podiceps rubricollis, a 
rare bird, mentioned as having once or twice been seen before in 
Essex and reported to have been killed in some other counties 
in England, most frequently on the coasts of Northumberland 
and Durham. 
We leave the elegant stranger, swimming with amazing rapi¬ 
dity into the middle mere, and we make our way to the woods. 
