AN ESSAY ON BIRD-MIND 115 



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 dancing, and very gradually sinking down 

 (always touching 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 apparently of 

 very little direct (though possibly much indirect) 

 biological advantage, the action being self-exhausting, 

 not stimulating to further sexual relations, and carried 

 out, it would seem, for its own sake. 



Further acquaintance with the Grebe only deepened 

 the interest and made clearer the emotional tinge 

 underlying all the relations of the sexes. This bird, 

 too, has its ' greeting ceremony ' ; but since, unlike 

 the colonial Herons and Egrets, it makes every effort 

 to conceal its nest, this cannot take place at its most 

 natural moment, that of nest-relief, but must be made 

 to happen out on the open water where there are no 



