THE LITTLE GREBE. 
193 
September,, contained portions of a Gasterosteus ; several speci- 
mens of the shell Valvata ohtusa, and some aquatic insects. An 
individual,, captured in the eel-nets at Toome Bridge on the 17th 
of October, contained a mass of the remains of those insects, of 
which Notonectm were the chief. Another bird, procured this 
month, had its stomach quite full of similar food ; with which 
also, and mollusca ( Planorbis carinatus and Limneus joalustris), 
one, obtained at the Shannon near Portumna on the 2nd of 
March, 1846, was filled; — no feathers appeared in any of the 
stomachs of the little grebe examined by me. Pive perfect speci- 
mens of the shell Paluclina tentaculata (P. impura , Lam.) were 
reported to me as found in the stomach of another bird.* 
The little grebe is equally common to suitable localities 
throughout the year in all parts of the island ; — in the north-west 
of Donegal, as well as south-east of Wexford ; in the north-east 
of Antrim, as well as south-west of Kerry ; is common inland 
about the Shannon, on the Connemara lakes, and those of Con- 
naught generally. It has already been mentioned as breeding in 
a small pond close to the town of Belfast. About two wild pair 
breed every year in the pond of the Zoological Cardens, Phoenix 
Park, Dublin. At Baldoyle also, in the vicinity of the metropolis, 
they have had a breeding haunt. Localities in w r hich the great- 
crested grebe nidifies have generally the little grebe for a tenant 
also, though the former species requires a much greater extent of 
water than suffices for the other. Mr. B. Davis, jun. (of Clon- 
mel) observes of the P. minor — its nest is so well concealed 
that a search for it is almost useless a remark which is made 
feelingly, from his being an egg-collector. 
On a small and very retired sheet of water at the base of lofty 
mountains at Aberarder, Inverness-shire, which came under my 
observation when grouse-shooting there during September 1842, 
several of these grebes were seen, and one of them shot : they 
doubtless breed there, far remote from any others of their kindred. 
* Mr. J. Watters. 
VOL. III. 
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