AN ESSAY ON BIRD-MIND 117 



rapidly, until the watcher wonders what will be done 

 to avert a collision. The answer is simple: there is 

 no averting of a collision! But the collision is exe- 

 cuted in a remarkable way: the two birds, when close 

 to each other, leap up from the water and meet breast 

 to breast, almost vertical, suddenly revealing the 

 whole flashing white under-surface. They keep 

 themselves in this position by violent splashings of 

 the feet, rocking a little from side to side as if danc- 

 ing, and very gradually sinking down (always touch- 

 ing with their breasts) towards the horizontal. 



Meanwhile, they exchange some of the weed they 

 are carrying; or at least nibbling and quick move- 

 ments of the head are going on. And so they settle 

 down on to the water, shake their heads a few times 

 more, and separate, changing back from these per- 

 formers of an amazing age-old rite — age-old but ever 

 fresh — into the feeding- and sleeping-machines of 

 every day, but leaving a vision of strong emotion, 

 canalized into the particular forms of this dive and 

 dance. The whole performance impresses the 

 watcher not only with its strength, but as being ap- 

 parently of very little direct (though possibly muth 

 indirect) biological advantage, the action being self- 

 exhausting, not stimulating to further sexual rela- 

 tions, and carried out, it would seem, for its own sake. 



Further acquaintance with the Grebe only deep- 

 ened the interest and made clearer the emotional 

 tinge underlying all the relations of the sexes. This 

 bird, too, has its "greeting ceremony"; but since, un- 



