282 OUR RARER BIRDS 



when they took flight and displayed the white bar across 

 their wings. Many little Grebes come to our shores in 

 winter from more northern lands, migrating at night, and 

 they are sometimes caught in the flight-nets on the Wash, in 

 company with the Great-crested Grebe, their much larger 

 congener. These refugees from wintery storms rarely come 

 far inland, and I do not think many of them remain in this 

 country through the summer. 



The Little Grebe is rarely seen on the land. Its true 

 home is the water, and it is almost as aquatic in its habits as 

 the fish themselves. You may sometimes see it run out of 

 the rushes and wander up and down the banks of the pool, 

 especially in early morning or in the dusk of evening ; but if 

 alarmed or disturbed, it runs with great speed into the nearest 

 cover, and you may wait for hours without seeing it venture 

 forth again. Sometimes, however, this little bird displays a 

 fearlessness quite at variance with its usual manner ; and I 

 have repeatedly watched it swimming quietly about the pool 

 as a railway train dashed by not twenty feet from where it 

 floated on the water. Although the feet of this bird are not 

 webbed, but furnished with lobes like those of the Coot or 

 the Phalarope, it can swim with perfect ease, and dive with 

 marvellous skill. It is also capable of running quickly 

 through the tall weeds, and threads its -way between the 

 thick stems of the bulrushes with great speed, rarely if ever 

 allowing itself to be seen or flushed even by a dog. It is not 

 a noisy bird by any means, and its usual call-note is a low 

 and somewhat plaintive weet. 



The food of the Little Grebe varies a good deal, according to 

 the locality the bird may chance to frequent. In most districts 

 it catches small fish by diving after them in the water; and in- 

 sects and their larvae are eaten in abundance. It also picks the 

 various little snails from the stems of the herbage, or from the 

 mud at the bottom of the water, and surprises the tiny frogs 



