Sex Habits of the Great Crested Grebe. 303 



and it was not till after the male had again dived and brought 

 up more weed, which he, this time, let drop on the water, 

 that she reappeared, swimming towards him, from a long way 

 off, and on the left of him, now, instead of the right. She must 

 have made, therefore, a long dive, passing right under him. 

 She brought the weed to the male, exactly, in appearance, as 

 though to the nest. There was then, as I say, no stretching 

 up, with it, and very little enthusiasm. The male but just 

 touched it, if at all, and the female soon let it placidly fall on 

 the water. Here, then, we have the weed without the ' trick' ; 

 but even thus lopped, the sexual element must, I think, have 

 entered into it, at least with the female. The preceding 

 remarks apply equally, here, and it is, I think, quite under- 

 standable that no amatory associations, at this period, should 

 produce the semblence of a hymeneal journey to a nest not 

 yet in being. This, however, would not preclude the 

 possibility of the nest, itself, being built under the influence of 

 such associations, as is somewhat suggested by this last 

 procedure of the female. 



It would appear that all the love-antics of the Great 

 Crested Grebe are performed by both the sexes. Both ' sit 

 brooding on the charmed wave,' and both dance the 'ghostly 

 Penguin -dance.' The first of these two, on the part of the one 

 bird, would appear to be the orthodox occasion of the second 

 on that of the other ; but this is not always so. The male 

 (or whichever of the two it is, to whom it seems proper to 

 make this dramatic emergence) may come up quite in the 

 ordinary way, some little way off, and then merely swim to 

 the female. In short, both in the posturings themselves and 

 the combinations of them, as between the pair, there are 

 just those gradations and differences which the Darwinian 

 theory of evolution demands, but which Fabre, who had 

 nothing behind observation but wonder, dismissed from the 

 field of inquiry, either as being less rationally provocative 

 of that feeling than any culmination, when considered alone, 

 or for some other reason, not so apparent. x\nd in the 

 treatment of the problem of sexual selection, at any rate, 

 Fabre has had a very fair following. 



Putting all I have yet observed together, we may perhaps 

 gain some insight into the probable origin and philosophy 

 of the ' shaking-bout,' as witnessed in its highest development 

 by Huxley. Let us suppose that these Grebes, like various 

 other birds — Pigeons and Gulls to go no further — were, from 

 the first, accustomed to neb or bill, a habit which, though it 

 may now be obsolescent, yet still exists amongst them. But 

 they had, also, the ordinary toilette habit of preening, rather 

 strongly developed, whether through necessity, merel}^ or 

 partly also, as a nervous habit. Especially they often preened 



1921 Sept. 1 



