LITTLE GREBE.
This species is the smallest of the European Grebes, and certainly by far the best known member of the family found in the British Islands. It is rather remarkable that the Little Grebe was unknown as a distinct species to Linnæus. It was known to Brisson as Colymbus minor, and to most modern ornithologists as Podicipes minor, although some few writers speak of this bird as P. fluviatilis. Outside the British Islands it has a very wide distribution in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but the Little Grebe of America is a distinct species. The Little Grebe is found more or less frequently on the coast during winter, driven thereto when frosts seal up its inland haunts. On the coast this bird is more partial to the brackish back-waters, dykes, and estuaries, than to the open sea. The food of this bird consists not only of fish, but small crustaceans and molluscs, aquatic insects, young frogs, and various vegetable fragments. Its habits are very similar to those of the other Grebes; its swimming and diving powers are wonderful; its flight on occasion is rapid and strong, whilst its note is a shrill but not very loud weet. In its nesting economy the Little Grebe closely resembles its congeners. It quits the coast in spring, resorting to inland pools, often of very small size, making its usually floating or water-surrounded nest amongst the vegetation fringing the shallows, on which it deposits five or six eggs, dull white in colour. The parents often dive with their young from the nest to carry them out of impending danger—a habit common to all species in this genus.