RED-NECKED GREBE.
This Grebe, the Podicipes griseigena of Boddaert, and the P. rubricollis of most modern naturalists, is a fairly common winter visitor to the seas off our eastern and southern coasts, from the Orkneys to Cornwall. The range of the Red-necked Grebe outside our limits is a wide one, and embraces during summer the sub-Arctic portions of Europe, Asia, and America, becoming much more southerly in winter. During winter this Grebe may be met with close inshore, yet it seldom or never visits the land, living exclusively on the sea. Its habits at this season do not differ in any marked degree from those of its congeners. It may be seen swimming to and fro, sometimes just outside the fringe of rough surf, diving from time to time in quest of its food, which at this season is composed of fish principally. The nuptial ornaments of this Grebe are not so conspicuous as those of the preceding species, the dark crests are shorter, the tippet is scarcely perceptible, and the lower neck and upper breast are rich chestnut. In winter plumage this Grebe is best distinguished by its large size—next in this respect to the Great Crested Grebe—and by the absence of the white streak over the eye, which characterises that bird then. In April the Red-necked Grebe returns to its accustomed inland summer haunts to breed. These are reed and rush-fringed lakes and ponds. Here in the shallows a floating nest of rotten vegetation is formed, smaller than that of the preceding species, but otherwise closely resembling it. Many pairs may be found breeding close together—in colonies, so to speak. The four or five elliptical shaped eggs are laid in May or June, dirty white in colour, chalky in texture. The same habit of covering the eggs with weeds, previous to leaving them, may also be noted.