192 
COLYMBIDiE. 
pidity with which the little grebe can emerge, and again conceal 
itself when alarmed, is remarkable. The leap of a trout is scarcely 
more instantaneous. They hunt much in pairs. When undisturbed, 
they seldom remain below so long as half a minute.”* Sir 
William Jar dine was once witness to the motions of this species 
under water, and observes that, “ when moving straight forward 
it is propelled by the wings, a sort of flight, but when turning, 
and, we presume, when seeking its food, it has an easy, gliding 
motion, feet and wings being used as occasion requires, sometimes 
on one side and sometimes on the other, and we were reminded 
of the graceful gliding motions of the otter, where every turn 
seems given with perfect ease, at the same time with great acti- 
vity and quickness.''t This comparison will be appreciated by 
those who have witnessed the elegantly graceful turns of the 
otter in his pond at the Zoological Garden, Regent"’ s Park, 
London, where they can be seen to admirable advantage. Mr. 
R. Ball, at one of his zoological lectures in Dublin, exhibited a 
little grebe at which fourteen shots were fired before it was 
secured ! 
During frost, I once met with this species swimming near the 
shore in Belfast Bay, when the tide was smooth as a mirror. On 
another occasion, a little grebe was, in severe weather, shot be- 
neath one of the arches of the Long Bridge here. On the 18th 
of November, 1841, after three days' frost, severe for this early 
period of the winter, and when a thaw had commenced, one of 
these birds was shot in Dunbar's Dock, Belfast, and another was 
seen in the same vicinity : on examination of its stomach I found 
the remains of vegetable matter, with a few small shells, Lacuna 
quadrifasciata , Rissoa ulvce , and the very young of Littorina rudis. 
The stomach of one of these birds, examined by me in Sep- 
tember, was filled with the remains of a few three-spined stickle- 
backs (Gasterostei) , Crustacea, and aquatic insects, among which 
was a perfect boat-fly ( Notonecta ) . Another, killed on the 1 st of 
* Mr. J. Poole. 
f ‘ Brit. Birds/ vol. iv. p. 210. The whole account of this bird, as observed by 
the author in the south of Scotland, is very interesting. 
