404 CREBES. 
towards the breast, and the neck and upper part of the breast are white, spot- 
tcd with black, and cinctured with two collars of deep black. The breast and 
abdomen are white. The total Iengta of the bird is not quite three feet. 
The immature bird is greyish black above, each feather being edged with a 
lighter hue, and the under parts of the body are dull white. In some 
places this bird is called the Loon. 
THE sub-family of the Grebes is represented in England by several well- 
known species. All these birds may be readily distinguished by the peculiar 
form of the foot, in which each toe is furnished with a flattened wel, the 
whole foot looking something like a horse-chestnut leaf with three lobes. 
GREAT NORTHERN DIVER.—(Co/ym ‘us g/acialis.) 
The best known of the English Grebes is the common DABCHICK, or 
LITTLE GREBE, the smallest and the commonest of British species. It is 
a pretty little bird, quick and alert in its movements. When alarmed, it 
dives so instantaneously that the eye can hardly follow its movements, and if 
at the moment of its emergence it perceives itself still in danger, it again 
dives, not having been on the surface for a single second of time. Like 
many other aquatic birds, it can sink itself in the water slowly, and o‘ten 
does so when uneasy, rising again if relieved from its anxiety, or disappearing 
as if jerked under the surface from below. I have often seen them in a little 
pond only a few yards across, thus diving and popping up again with almost 
ludicrous rapidity. 
This bird can fly moderately well, and can rise from the water without 
difficulty, when it will circle about the spot whence it rose, and keep some five 
or six feet above the surface, uttering the while its curious rattling crv. 
The nest of this bird is made of water-weeds. and is placed among the rank 
aquatic herbage. It is scarcely raised above the surface, and is mostly wet. 
The eggs are five or six in number, and their normal colour is white, though 
they soon become stained with the decaying vegetable matter on which they 
rest, and before hatching are of a muddy brown hue, 
