200 Sex Habits of the Great Crested Grebe. 



mutual satisfaction. This bout of nebbing was not interrupted 

 cither by head-shakings or hcad-twitchings, and preening, 

 whether nervous or otherwise, was also absent. The main 

 object, which seemed clear and straightforward, was not, 

 in this case, obscured, or interfeied with. Another' pair 

 advanced, to meet one another, first with the neck outstretched 

 on the water, in one straight line with the head and bill, as 

 two birds proposing to fight would do. Then as they met, 

 with but a foot or two, perhaps, of water between them, they 

 raised themselves to a full, stretched height, bowed to each 

 other, and then continued to bob or nod the head, this being 

 first brought a little down, and then jerked upwards, so that 

 the beak, for a moment or two, became ' star-y-pointing.' 

 This was a fairly well-developed ceremony, yet with nothing 

 that could be called head-shaking about it. I also noticed 

 several times, a bird ' holding out its wings, to dry,' according 

 to the question-begging phrase, as do Shags and Cormorants 

 (both on land and in the sea), and there was one instance 

 of bathing, in which the movements were so violent — one 

 might almost say frantic — as to make it seem probable, as 

 suggested by me before in the case of the Shag,* Red-throated 

 Diver and other species, that an action, once of practical 

 utility, has been impressed, in this one also, into the army 

 of sexual antics. 



M.\RCH 1ST.* — As the light was failing, I went out with the 

 glasses, and saw first one, and then, a good while afterwards, 

 four Dabchicks. These birds are not all gone, therefore, 

 but it looks as though most of them had repaired to their 

 nesting-sites, thus putting a stop to the congregating habit. 



(To be ctmtiniied ). 



: o : 



Part XXII. of The Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society contains 

 Essays on the Dialect of Upper Calderdale, ' The Felon Sewe of Rokeby,' 

 the ' Riming Charter of Beverley,' etc. 



The Report of the Warrington Museum Committee for the four years 

 ending June 30th, 1920, has recently reached ps. It contains a classified 

 list of additions, and a portrait of the late Charles Madeley, director and 

 librarian, 1874-1920. 



The Sixty-ninth Report of the Marlborough College Natural History 

 Society contains 46 pages of valuable records. These not only relate to 

 flowering plants, birds, butterflies and moths, and the usiial nm of scl-.ool 

 records, but include Hemiptera, Diptera, Lichens, Rust -fungi and Plant- 

 galls, Mosses, etc. There are valuable meteorological notes. The report 

 is well printed and well edited. 



* ' Bird Watching,' 1901, pp. 170-1 ; ' The Bird Watcher in tlic 

 Shetlands,' 1905, pp. 199-201 ; ' Wild Life,' March, 1914, pp. 143-4. 



* The intervening period was occupied in a 'bout ' of illness, on my 

 own part. 



Naturalist 



