178 
COLYMBIDiE . 
tion," in rowing after it by men accustomed to the business was 
required before the bird was approached in such a manner that it 
could be fired at. 
A fine adult bird,, kept on the water in St. James's Park, Lon- 
don, is mentioned by Yarrell. This is probably the same indi- 
vidual which afforded much amusement to a friend and myself 
one evening at the end of April 1843, by the extreme agility dis- 
played in fly-catching. It pursued its prey in all possible ways, 
shooting its neck vertically upwards for any passing overhead, 
the next moment to one side or other, and again making a rush 
along the surface of the water for two or three yards after some 
winged insect. I never saw so much agility displayed by any 
bird in this pursuit : all the numerous species of Anatida on the 
water, though busied fly-catching also, were the veriest dolts 
compared with the grebe. 
This species has been already alluded to as more frequent in 
Ireland than Scotland, and, judging from general works on 
British birds, I should have believed it to be as common in the 
former country as in England. According, however, to the fol- 
lowing extract from the Bev. Mr. Lubbock's f Eauna of Norfolk,' 
and the communication from John Gatcombe, Esq., of Plymouth, 
which succeeds it, greater numbers have been observed there than 
I ever heard of in Ireland. Mr. Lubbock gives from personal 
observation much the fullest and most interesting account of the 
habits of this bird that I have seen, having had fine opportunities 
for studying them on the “ broads " of that county. He states 
that “ fifteen or sixteen might be seen in the same day and at the 
same time in different parts of South Walsham broad" (p. 84) : 
whether all old birds, or old ones with their broods, is not men- 
tioned. In the summer of 1833 he knew of five grebes' nests 
“ upon a pool of water a good deal overgrown with reed" (p. 88). 
Nests of that year are, of course, meant, but there may be a fal- 
lacy in such a case. Two nests were reported as being on the lake 
in Hillsborough Park in one season, and correctly so ; but, on exa- 
mination, one of them proved to be the nest of a former year !* 
* Two pair, however, bred here in the summer of 1850, the young of the first 
