sometimes rather more; from the carpal joint to the end
of the longest quill-feather eleven inches and a half.
Females are usually smaller, some measuring only twenty-
one inches in length, and but ten inches and a quarter from
the wrist to the end of the quill-feather.
The nestling is covered with a thick brownisli-black
velvety down, lighter in colour on the underparts. The
young bird in first plumage, from which the upper figure in
our illustration was taken, has the crown and hind neck
dark ashy-grey, narrowly streaked with white ; the feathers
of the hack, scapulars, and wing-coverts margined with
white. The white border is first interrupted at the extreme
end of the feather, leaving the white marks as two long
lateral lines. These lines of white diminish in length by
degrees, leaving only one white spot on each outer edge of
the feather. At each successive autumnal moult the new
feathers are much spotted and margined with white; and
this white seems to wear away, leaving the upper parts
nearly unspotted. In early summer this is very marked;
by July there is hardly a spot on mantle and wings.
In the winter plumage the adults lose the red throat, but
it would appear that in mature and vigorous individuals
this colour is absent for a short period ; thus giving rise
to the opinion that birds which had once acquired the
dark-coloured throat did not lose it at any season.
Mr. A. H. Cocks states (Zool. 1883, p. 176) that he has
seen, in a local collection at Dover, a small specimen of this
Diver with the anterior portion of both tarsi feathered
throughout their whole length.
Albinos are occasionally met with ; a remarkable example
which was shot at the Nore is now in the collection of Mr.
John Marshall, of Belmont, Taunton.
P YGOPODES. PODICIPE DIDÆ.
P o d ic e p s c r ist a t u s (Linnæus*).
THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE.
Podiceps cristatus.
Podiceps, Latham’\.—Bill of moderate length, straight, hard, slightly compressed,
pointed, forming an elongated cone. Nostrils lateral, concave, oblong,
open in front,, and perforate, closed behind by a membrane. Legs and feet
long, attached behind the centre of gravity; tarsi very much compressed ;
three toes in front, one behind ; anterior toes very much flattened, united at
the base, surrounded by a lobated membrane ; hind toe also flattened, articulated
on the inner surface of the tarsus ; claws large, flat. No true tail. Wings
short, first three primaries nearly equal in length, and the longest in the wing.
The Grebes aDd Dabcliicks are diving birds which frequent
fresh water during a considerable portion of the year.
Their wings are short and small, the thighs and legs being
placed so far behind the centre of gravity, and so closely
attached to the posterior part ot their "body, that they sit
upright on the whole length of the tarsus, and their walk
is constrained. When the birds are on land they are
generally close to the edge of the water, into which, if
* Cotymbus cristatus, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 222 (1766).
+ Gen. Synops. Suppl. p. 294 (1787).