526 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
many of the diving Ducks do, but these birds and all 
the Colymbidze seem to me, when diving to avoid 
danger, merely to put their heads under water and 
sink out of sight and shot, and sometimes do not 
come up again till they have got two or three hundred 
yards away. ‘The present species, however, after a 
dive or two generally takes to the wing if pursued, 
and then, unless he rises within shot of the boat, it 
is all over with the chase. 
The food of the Great Crested Grebe consists 
almost entirely of fish, frogs and tadpoles. Yarrell 
says the parent birds usually feed their young with 
young eels. It is a curious fact that in the stomach 
of all the Grebes a quantity of feathers is almost 
always found. How the feathers get there does not 
appear at present to be perfectly ascertained: they 
are not swallowed with their food, as they do not 
appear to take any feathered prey: the most pro- 
bable supposition seems to be that they are swal- 
lowed by the bird accidentally when preening its 
feathers: neither does it appear to be quite certain 
what becomes of these feathers—whether they pass 
through, or are rejected in pellets, as is the case with 
Hawks and some other birds that live on feathered 
prey. : 
The Great Crested Grebe is at all ages a very 
peculiar-looking bird. In the adult the bill is 
brownish red; irides red; the top of the head and 
the long feathers making the ear-tufts are dark 
