l62 BIRDS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



thus it has a much longer rounded tail, is a frequenter of 

 the open sea, except durinj^ the breeding season, when it 

 resorts to the grassy or sandy tops of cliffs, where it 

 occupies or makes a burrow in which it deposits a single 

 white egg of considerable size. 



The bill is dark brown, with a fuirow on the upper 

 mandible ; the general colour of the plumage is dark 

 blackish brown above and white underneath ; the legs and 

 toes are reddish, but the webs are drab ; behind the legs 

 the white feathers are crossed by three or four broad 

 bands of light grey. 



The food consists of marine creatures, which the birds 

 capture while swimming in flocks with their heads and 

 bills below the surface, the hindermost of the party every 

 now and then rising and pattering over the water to the 

 front. Length, 1 foot 2 inches. 



Stormy Petrel. — Tiiis small, inconspicuous bird is best 

 Known by the name of Mother C.\rey's Chicken ; it is 

 brownish black, all but the vent and under tail coverts, 

 which are white. It is the smallest web-footed bird known, 

 measuring but G inches. One white e^s is laid in some 

 disused rabbit burrow at the top of a cliff, and the young 

 one is fed on a kind of oil disgorged by the parent birds. 



THE GREBES. 



These birds rightly constitute an independent family, 

 for they are sepaiated from all other web-footed birds 

 by marked characteristics. 



Fam i ly — Co/j 'uihidce. 



Genus — 1. Tachybaptcs. T. fuviatilis. Little Grebe. 



