COURTSHIP ACTIVITIES IN THE KED-THROATED DIVER. 259' 
pointing up, but at a less angle. The neck itself was straight and rigid. In' 
this pose she swam close up to the male, crossing his bows, so to speak.- 
Whatever its significance, the performance was exciting to watch. There- 
was a tenseness about the bird's attitude, a rigidity, which has been com- 
mented on by other writers, notably by E. Selous, in connection witli various 
sexual ceremonies in other birds f Selous, ^01-'02, '05 a, '05 6). I can best 
describe the impression it made on me by saying that it was like that 
apparently produced by certain sexual dances of savage tribes — the whole- 
thing fraught with the significance of sexual emotion, and mysterious in the 
sense o£ being thus emotionally charged far beyond the level of ordinary life, 
but completely natural and without restraint. It is fairly clear that, even in 
animals, the emotional tension during sexual excitement is far higher than at 
almost any other time, and that the impression given to the observer is, 
therefore, not wholly a subjective one. 
On this occasion the male was absolutely unresponsive to the female's 
"stimulating" action. The pair went off together; after some time the 
female started to go by a long route across dry land to the nest, but soon 
gave it up. The pair then swam, the female again leading, to a little bar 
covered with moss on the far shore. This bar I afterwards examined, and 
found that on it there was a rudimentary nest, built almost entirely of the 
moss which was here abundant, both on the bar and under the surface of the 
shallow water near by. Another such " nest " was found on the shore of 
a second tarn on which a second pair was breeding. Very similar structures 
are built by the Crested Grebe ; and in both cases their function appears to 
be the ?ame — they are the places on (or near) which the act of coition occurs- 
Just before arriving here both birds simultaneously "looked into the water '• 
.{vide supra) for about 20 seconds ; there was also a good deal of beak-dipping 
by both male and female. On arriving at the bar the female turned and 
gave an energetic splash-dive. The male responded by a less energetic 
splash-dive. The male then crawled out on the mossy bar, onto what I later 
found to be the pairing-nest ; there he stood upright, stamped alternately with 
his two feet several times, and then sank down as if brooding. He plucked 
small fragments of moss in his beak, and apparentlj^ placed them round 
himself as if adding to the nest. The female meanwhile was swimming close 
to the bar, in water scarcely deeper than her draught, giving repeated splash- 
dives. Her tail (which of course was very short, as in all Divers and Grebes) 
was repeatedly waggled up and down. The association of this motion with 
copulation in birds is obvious and well-known. However, she did not land, 
but swam across to the right and back, giving several more splash-dives ; 
the male got up and scrambled back into the water. The pair then 
went to the nearest point to the true nest, both diving twice en route (not 
splash-dires) ; the female led, at a fast pace. After one short abortive 
excursion overland towards the nest, followed by swimming off the shore, she 
