LITTLE GREBE. 303 



then it uttered the same piping note ; but finding it was being 

 pressed by a trout in the same bag, I put it into a small 

 wooden match-box. On arriving at home, I was surprised 

 to find it alive, and on being put into a basin of water it 

 swam about, still uttering its little note. When I first 

 caught it, it could not stand, but carried its legs stretched 

 out behind; finding it was injured I was obliged to kill it, 

 which I did by pressure on the breast, and, though only 

 about 4^ inches in length, I was sorry to find it very tena- 

 cious of life. We afterwards, on the same pond, about ten 

 yards from the shore, found a nest containing six eggs, care- 

 fully covered with weeds. All were arranged in the nest with 

 the points upward, and difl'ered slightly in form, two being 

 larger at one end than at the other, the rest being pointed at 

 both, as is most usual. Another circumstance which I 

 thought remarkable was that some appeared to be much 

 further advanced in incubation than others. 



I was once present at an amusing scene, a man being 

 brought before the magistrates on a charge of taking a 

 Partridge's egg. The witness, a game-keeper, had in his 

 hand a Chaffinch's nest, containing several small birds' eggs, 

 and a large white one. The chairman told him to hand up 

 the nest to him, and asked which was the Partridge's egg. 

 '' The big'un," replied the keeper with contemptuous assur- 

 ance, on which he was asked whether he could swear to a 

 Partridge's egg when he saw it, and he was very indignant. 

 The chairman, however, taking a pair of scissors from his 

 pocket, deliberately cut open the egg, and producing a young 

 Dabchick, set it upon the desk, observing: "There's your 

 Partridge for you," to the great amusement of the court and 

 the discomfiture of the keeper. The case was, of course, 

 dismissed, the chairman recommending the witness to 

 learn his business before again practising his profession. 

 The Little Grebe swims with considerable swiftness, and 



