VOL. xrv.] NOTES. 189 



the old ])ird sittiiij? on a single egg. which was quite fresh. 

 I caught the bird in my hand, and was able to identify it 

 without any doubt. I could not see any other birds on 

 the island, and though I found several disused burrows, 

 in which, I was told, they had bred in previous years, none 

 of them were occupied this year. 



This appears to be the first record of the Manx Shearwater 

 breeding on Inishbofin. H. B. Cott. 



RATE OF PROGRESS OF GREAT CRESTED GREBE 



UNi:)ER WATER. 

 It is not often that opportunity' offers for the accurate 

 computation of the rate at which a diving bird progresses 

 under water ; the following note may, therefore, be of 

 interest. 



During a sojourn in Lincolnshire in October 1920 I came 

 upon a Great Crested Grebe [Podiccps c. cristatus) in the 

 river Glen, where that stream flows straight and sluggish as 

 a canal through the fen country, enclosed by high embank- 

 ments on either flank, and destitute of weeds or obstruction 

 on the surface as far as the eye can reach. There was no 

 difficulty in getting right on top of the bird, so to speak, 

 nor in following it as far as one listed. This 1 did for about 

 half an hour, timing the dives by watch and stepping the 

 distance (and 1 think I may claim to be able to count yards 

 very accurately in that way), and I was surprised at the very 

 slight variation that occurred either in the length of dive or 

 the time it occupied. The bird was followed in either 

 direction it chose to take, and twenty dives did not vary 

 more than three yards in length, nor four seconds in duration ; 

 the mean being yy yards and 58 seconds. I quite expected 

 that both speed and distance covered would have been greater. 

 The bird, I ma}' add, was an adult, and, though naturally 

 doing its best all the time, it showed little signs of fatigue 

 when 1 left it, and was very rarely at all flurried. It was 

 never noticed to open its wings under water, nor did it once 

 forbear to raise its whole body to the surface, even when it 

 was forced to come up within a few yards of me. For the 

 most part I walked along the top of the bank, some 30 feet 

 above the water, but occasionally descended to the water's 

 edge to get the Grebe at closer quarters. George Bolam. 



LITTLE AUK INLAND IN WESTMORLAND. 



Om November 20th, 1920, a specimen of the Little Auk 

 {AUe alle) was captured by a cat at Ambleside, and was 



