A SUGGESTIVE RESEMBLANCE 285 



ground, is extremely noticeable, especially in the 

 coot, and, in fact, the strange appearance presented 

 by the whole thing — its bizarrerie^ which is very 

 great — is entirely due to our seeing something 

 which belongs, essentially, to the land, carried on 

 in another element, for which it is not really fitted. 

 How differently do the grebes fight — by diving, and 

 using the beak under water ! Yet they, like the 

 coot, are only fin-footed, whilst the coot is almost 

 as good a diver as themselves. No one, however, 

 comparing the structure and general habits of the 

 two families, can doubt that the one is much more 

 distantly separated from its land ancestry than the 

 other. In both the coot and the moorhen, indeed, 

 we see an interesting example of the early stages of 

 an evolution, but the coot has gone farther than 

 the moorhen, for besides that it dives much better, 

 and swims out farther from the shore, it bathes 

 floating on the water, whilst the moorhen does so 

 only where it is shallow enough to stand. 



Readers of "The Naturalist in La Plata," may 

 remember the account there given of the curious 

 screaming-dances — social, not sexual — of the Ype- 

 caha rails. *' First one bird among the rushes emits 

 a powerful cry, thrice repeated ; and this is a note of 

 invitation, quickly responded to by other birds from 

 all sides, as they hurriedly repair to the usual place. 

 . . . While screaming, the birds rush from side to 

 side, as if possessed with madness, the wings spread 

 and vibrating, the long beak wide open and raised 

 vertically." Do moorhens do anything analogous 

 to this, anything that might in time grow into it, 

 or into something like it .? In my opinion they do, 



