IN THE SHETLANDS 269 
the midst of the strife both birds bow, several times, 
according to their custom, and we then feel sure that 
both are males. Meanwhile, however, our assured 
female, who has been left where she was, is seen to 
bow to another bird who has alighted near her, upon 
which we change our minds, conclude that she is 
a male after all, and that what we, at first, thought to 
be courtship, was only a fight between two cocks. And 
thus we go on, correcting and correcting our opinion— 
until in a gathering of perhaps a dozen or more stock- 
doves there would seem to be no female at all— 
because if they were pheasants or blackcocks the hens 
would not behave in this way. Again, when one first 
sees a shag throw itself down before another one, 
and go through a variety of strange gestures to which 
the latter makes no response—if not by a caress of the 
bill—it is impossible not to feel sure that the bird 
thus acting is the male shag, and the other the female. 
But when one afterwards sees two birds at the nest— 
male and female beyond a doubt—mutually or alter- 
nately performing some portion of these antics, though 
without the primary prostration,’ what is one to think 
then? In such cases as these, where the sexes are not 
to be distinguished except by dissection, or having 
the bird in one’s hands, we cannot be sure that it is 
always the male we see displaying to the female, and 
never the female to the male. I believe, however, 
that we have tacitly assumed this to be the case. 
An incident which I have recorded elsewhere seems 
1 [ instance only what I have actually seen, and go no farther. 
