530 PODICIPEDIM; 



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. 1 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 like a nest, 2 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, 3 and during 

 the process the eggs often become stained a deep brown 

 from contact with decaying vegetation. 



1 Watters describes the habits of a Little Grebe of which he made 

 a pet, as follows: "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). 



2 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, another received two shot punctures, through which I 

 expelled the contents, while the third escaped uninjured. 



3 I have taken the eggs on July 8th, 1889, on Lough Neagh, and this 

 bird is known to lay in August. 



