igS Sex Habits of the Great Crested Grebe: 



art' to be seen hanging on the bodies of oxen in South Africa — 

 a terrible pest, one would imagine, for a bird of so small a 

 size. It seems possible, therefore, that these elegant Grebes- 

 may have some real good reason for preening themselves so- 

 assiduously, though I hope this is not the case, and that it 

 really is something more latter-day, after all. 



Fkb. 24TH. — In boat-house long before it was light, this 

 morning, the ground being all covered, thick, with snow, 

 which had fallen in the night — it commenced yesterday 

 evening. The first birds to stir on the water, were the little 

 Dabchicks, but the Coots that before had been so noisy and 

 pugnacious, in the quite early morning,, were now both silent 

 and invisible, so that I left about 6-30, under the impression 

 that they had really migrated from these waters, all, at least, 

 except such as might have elected to stay and breed in them. 

 On my return, however, about 8 o'clock, they were all upon the 

 water again — at least there was no noticeable diminution. 



Between 10 and 11, on the Wilston water, I twice saw 

 sexualities proceeding between a pair of the Crested Grebes. 

 On the first occasion this had to do with movements of the head 

 and neck only, but I certainly could not describe them as a 

 ' bout of shaking,' for they were always far more twitches 

 than shakes that the birds gave, and always with that 

 appearance, which I have before noticed, as of their being 

 preliminary, merely, to something of real importance which 

 was about to take place,, but did not. There was, however, a 

 much more noticeable — or perhaps I should rather say a more 

 spectacular feature, unless it was novelty alone which made 

 the difference — for the birds, time and again, instead of 

 either shaking or twitching their heads, jerked them perpen- 

 dicularly upwards, and, at the same time, opened and shut 

 their mandibles, several times in succession. This was done 

 with a moderate quickness, and as a part of the whole per- 

 formance. One of the two distended them very widely, and 

 kept them so, for a few seconds. The angle at which the man- 

 dibles then diverged from each other was such as to make 

 them look like a pair of scissors, opened to their fullest 

 extent. I do not know — for neither then nor at any other 

 time have I been able to observe — what the colouring of the' 

 buccal cavity, in these Grebes, may be. If sufficiently 

 salient, it seems possible that these actions may have reference 

 to it, but it is the first time I have seen them. 



A short time after this, the same pair gave me a specimen' 

 of what Huxley has called the ' ghostly Penguin " attitude, 

 or ' ghost-dive,' on the part of the male— his simple avcu I 

 thought it — and the ' cat,' or Halcyon one, on that of the 

 female. The former dived, and I then noted that the 

 female, who was turned away from me, had her wings 



Naturalist 



