204 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



witnessed at other seasons, though it is most uncommon when the birds are 

 engaged in incubation, or have young. On the 12th January, one year, while 

 watching the movements of a number of wild-fowl, including Mallards and Wild 

 Ducks, Tufted Ducks, Pochards, Golden-eye Ducks, Coots, and Moorhens, I saw 

 a Little Grebe twice rise from the water, without being at all alarmed, and fly 

 some distance across the water. But when I have surprised these birds suddenly 

 at close quarters, in the sluggish streams, broad ditches, and small ponds, which 

 they chiefly frequent in open weather in the winter, they have invariably sought 

 safety by diving. In the breeding season the Dabchick haunts the smaller reed 

 and rush grown pools, sluggish rivers, and marsh drains, in preference to the 

 larger sheets of water, where, however, it is by no means uncommonly found. 

 The Little Grebe, in summer, is by no means adverse to the company of man, 

 and indeed in some degree resembles the Moorhen in its domestic habits. It may 

 often be seen on small pools, quite close to houses, and I know a small piece of 

 water, at the bottom of a garden in Oxfordshire, where I was assured the Little 

 Grebe bred regularly. Instances of this kind could easily be multiplied, and the 

 Little Grebe is not entirely absent from London. Formerly it used to nest on 

 the round pond in Kensington Gardens, and at the present day it inhabits and 

 nests regularly in St. James' Park. A correspondent, who had often watched the 

 Little Grebe feeding her young, wrote : — " The latter swim about in shelter of 

 thick flags, and the mother dives after the fry, I think of roach, and having 

 caught one, pokes no more than her head above water, gives it to one of her 

 •brood, and slips underwater again silently." The Little Grebe has been observed 

 to dive with its young under its wings. Its usual note is weet, often rapidly 

 repeated and becoming a chatter. It feeds upon small fish, aquatic insects, 

 shrimps, and other marine creatures, small molluscs, tadpoles, etc.; and vegetable 

 substance is sometimes found inside it. Several instances of this bird being 

 choked by attempting to swallow " bull-heads," or " miller's thumbs " (Cottus 

 gobioj, have been known. 



The nest, which is of the same character as those of the other species of 

 Grebe already described, is generally a floating structure in deep water, moored 

 to reeds, rushes, or other plants ; but it is sometimes built close to the shore, and 

 attached to the herbage thereon, and also built up from the bottom in shallow 

 water; a nest has been recorded built on a branch of a willow tree, but flush 

 with the surface of the water. The Little Grebe breeds in April, and fresh eggs 

 have been found quite late in the summer; it is probable that two broods may 

 sometimes be reared. The eggs, which number from three to six (seven have 

 been known), usually four or five, measure about 1*5 inch long, by about roo 



