Genus TACHYBAPTUS Reichenbach, 1849.[6]
Characters same as those given for the Family.
73. TACHYBAPTUS PHILIPPENSIS (Bonnaterre).
PHILIPPINE GREBE.
- Colymbus philippensis Bonnaterre, Tabl. Encycl. Meth. (1790), 1, 58, pl. 46, fig. 3.
- Podicipes philippensis Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 511.
- Podicipes philippinensis Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 113; Oates, Cat. Birds’ Eggs (1901), 1, 133; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 19.
Su-li-a′-sit, Manila; ga-mao′, Bohol.
Bohol (McGregor); Calayan (McGregor); Guimaras (Steere Exp.); Luzon (Jagor, Heriot, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Whitehead, McGregor, Stafford); Mindanao (Mearns); Panay (Clarke).[7] Borneo, southern China, Burmese provinces, Formosa, Hainan.
Adult in breeding plumage.—Above dark, glossy seal-brown; chin, fore throat, and cheeks blackish; throat, sides of neck, and ear-coverts chestnut; breast and abdomen silvery white, mixed with a little blackish brown and gradually shading into blackish brown on fore breast, sides, flanks, and lower belly; thighs blackish mixed with a little light chestnut; wings black; under wing-coverts, axillars, and tips of short secondaries white. “Iris straw-yellow; bill black, whitish at the tip; naked skin at base of bill and between rami of the mandible pale greenish yellow; legs blackish gray, with a slight tinge of green.” (Swinhoe.) A male from Calayan, November 15, 1903, measures: Length, 280; wing, 107; culmen broken; tarsus, 33; middle toe with claw, 48.
The following data are from a female taken at Jala Jala, Laguna de Bay, Luzon, January 5, 1902. Feet bluish black; angle of mouth and base of lower mandible clear, pale pea-green; bill black with a light spot at tip. Wing, 100; exposed culmen, 23; tarsus, 33; middle toe with claw, 49. A female from Sevilla, Bohol, March 24, 1906, measures: Length, 254; wing, 102; exposed culmen, 23; tarsus, 33; middle toe with claw, 49.
The non-breeding bird has the chin and throat white and the chestnut reduced in extent and lighter in shade.