PODICEPS RUBRICOLLIS.
Red-necked Grebe.

Podiceps rubricollis, Lath. Ind. Orn., tom. ii. Paacoe

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.).
nevius, 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 vulgaris) and fishes, with ear-
bones of small Gadide, a pipe-fish (Syngnathus 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 Norwich, 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 Bothnian Gulf, particularly between Pitea and Lulea. They 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 youn birds in
August, and seen them in considerable numbers, two years in succession, in the same Se no doubt
can exist that they are regular visitants. The eggs I did not see ; but the ee 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

 

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