530 PODICIPEDIDAs 
the water and dive. It will also wing its way from one 
lake to another, and at night sometimes flies round the coast. 
Voice.-—The Little Grebe may often be heard uttering 
a rather shrill, trilling sound like wheet-wheet, which is very 
far-reaching. 
Food.'—Besides small fish, water-snails, tadpoles, and 
insects, duck-weed and other aquatic vegetable substances 
are eaten, and in winter when on the coast this bird also 
consumes small marine shell-fish and worms. Feathers 
are generally present in the stomach. 
Nest.—The popular idea that the nest floats freely in the 
water is quite erroneous. It is almost invariably attached 
to submerged stems or to adjacent sedges or reeds, and in 
shallow water is often built up from the bottom of the lake. 
It is a rude structure, composed of aquatic plants, and con- 
veying to the untrained eye but little resemblance to a 
bird’s nest. In fact before the eggs are laid it looks like 
a lump of refuse floating on the surface; when incubation 
has begun, it appears still less ike a nest,” being raised in 
the centre by leaves or weeds, placed on the egg by the 
owner when she quits them and dives under water. 
The eggs, three to six in number, are creamy-white and 
inclined to be pointed at both ends, but in many specimens 
one pole is distinctly larger and more rounded than the 
other. 
Incubation generally begins in April or later,’ and during 
the process the eggs often become stained a deep brown 
from contact with decaying vegetation. 
' Watters describes the habits of a Little Grebe of which he made 
a pet, as follows:—‘t When placed upon a tub of water it dived, and 
disported itself as well as its limits permitted, and captured, without 
any exertion, the minnow which had been placed for its food, at last 
becoming so familiar as to look upward when the fish was suspended 
by the tail, and diving after it when it entered the water; when lifted 
out it paddled along the floor in the most amusing manner, after every 
few feet traversed squatting down to rest ; no way timid when placed on 
the breakfast table, it never attempted to move until taken away to 
enjoy its morning bath” (‘ Birds of Ireland, p. 222). 
” Once by mistake I shot a hatching Little Grebe. I took her to be 
simply resting on the water, so flat and sunken was her nest. The 
latter was dripping wet and contained three eggs. These were stained 
a deep brown, though only laid about four days. One egg was blown 
to pieces, ancther received two shot punctures, through which I 
expelled the contents, while the third escaped uninjured. 
* T have taken the eggs on July 8th, 1889, on Lough Neagh, and this 
bird is known to lay in August. 
