144 BIRD WATCHING 



pleasing appearance, but the male bird is beauteous 

 indeed. In the pure white and deep, rich black of his 

 plumage he looks, at first, as though clothed all in 

 velvet and snow. There are, however, the green 

 feathers on the back of the head and neck, which do 

 not look like feathers at all, but rather a delicate wash 

 of colour, or as though some thin, glazed material — 

 some finest-made green silk handkerchief — had been 

 tied round his head with a view to health by the 

 female members of his family. And although at first, 

 with the exception of this green tint, all that is not the 

 richest velvet black looks purest white, the eye through 

 the glasses, growing more and more delighted, notices 

 soon a still more delicate wash of green about the 

 upper parts of the neck, and of delicate, very delicate, 

 buff on the full rounded breast just where it meets 

 the water. These glorified males — there were a dozen 

 of them, perhaps, to some six or seven females — swam 

 closely about the latter, but more in attendance upon 

 than as actually pursuing them ; for the females 

 seemed themselves almost as active agents in the sport 

 of being wooed as were their lovers in wooing them. 

 The actions were as follows : — The male bird first 

 dipped down his head till his beak just touched the 

 water, then raised it again in a constrained and tense 

 manner — the curious rigid action so frequent in the 

 nuptial antics of birds — at the same time uttering that 

 strange, haunting note. The air became filled with 

 it, every moment one or other of the birds — sometimes 

 several together — with upturned bill would softly laugh 

 or exclaim, and whilst the males did this, the females, 

 turning excitedly, and with little eager demonstrations 

 from one to another of them, kept lowering and ex- 



