174 COLYMBID.E. 



with them, and exhibit no indication of any having been eaten, 

 though all the grebes of this' species opened hj me had the 

 stomach cither wholly or partially filled with their own feathers. 

 In March 1838, several great-crested grebes were brought on sale 

 to Dublin. One has been shot on the sea, near the island of 

 Ireland's Eye. In Mr. Watters' collection there is an immature 

 bird, obtained fresh in February 1848 (said to have been killed 

 on a river in Ivildare), and one in adult summer plumage, shot on 

 the 29th of July, 1849. In the very severe weather of January, 

 1850, several were sent to the metropolis. 



This grebe has been procured during winter in Wexford Har- 

 bour,* and more than once on the coast of Waterford ; — at Dun- 

 garvan, one (" between two and three years old," as described by 

 Jenyns) was killed about the 1st of March, 1888.t Immature 

 birds only, obtained in Cork Harbour, are noticed in the ' Fauna' 

 of that county. On the 16th of January, 1849, one of these grebes 

 was shot there below Cove, when in company with some divers ; 

 and on the 5th of February a flock of five was seen on the sea, at 

 the back of Cove Island. J On the coast of Kerry it is occa- 

 sionally procured. § The Eev. T. Knox, of Toomavara (Tippe- 

 rary), and previously resident atKillaloe, on the Shannon, wrote to 

 me, on the 24th of j>fovember,1836, that several great-crested grebes 

 had, at different periods, come under his notice. Three of them 

 (one in adult summer, the others in immature or winter, plumage) 

 were, in July 1837, kindly sent by Mr. Knox for my inspection. 



In 1840, 1 learned from a person resident in Connemara, that tliis 

 species is found "in winter" on Loughs Corrib and Mask. || Mr. E. J. 

 Montgomery, visiting the west of Ireland in February 1850, heard 

 from fowlers that "loons" are in considerable numbers on those 

 two lakes. He went in pursuit of them, but was unable to ap- 

 proach within shot, or near enough to determine the species, which 

 most probably is the great-crested grebe. He was told that they 

 are more numerous in summer than in winter. Their nests or 



Major T. 'Walker. t Mr. I?. Davis, juii. X Mr. R. "Warren, juii. 



§ Mr. Vx. Chute. II Mr. AV. WCalh. 



