AN ESSAY ON BIRD-MIND 121 



eye open all the time. She is at once aroused to 

 action: she dives, and attacks the strange hen after 

 the fashion of Grebes, from below, with an under- 

 water thrust of the sharp beak in the belly. Whether 

 the thrust ever goes home I do not know. Generally, 

 I think, the offending bird becomes aware of the dan- 

 ger just in time, and, squawking, hastily flaps off. 

 The rightful mate emerges. What does she do now? 

 Peck the erring husband? Leave him in chilly dis- 

 grace? Not a bit of it! She approaches with an 

 eager note, and in a moment the two are hard at it, 

 shaking their heads; and, indeed, on such occasions 

 you may see more vigour and excitement thrown into 

 the ceremony than at any other time. 



Again we exclaim, how human! And again we 

 see to what a pitch of complexity the bird's emotional 

 life is tuned. 



It will have been observed that in the Grebe, whose 

 chief skill lies in its wonderful powers of diving, these 

 powers have been utilized as the raw material of 

 several of the courtship ceremonies. This pressing 

 of the everyday faculties of the bird into the service 

 of emotion, the elevation and conversion of its use- 

 ful powers of diving and underwater swimming into 

 ceremonials of passion, is from an evolutionary point 

 of view natural enough, and has its counterparts else- 

 where. So in the Divers, not too distant relatives of 

 the Grebes, swimming and diving have their role in 

 courtship. Here too the thrilling, vertical emergence 

 close to the mate takes place; and there is a strange 



