496 MR. J. 8. HUXLEY ON THE 
actions, I am told, are at any rate to be seen immediately after 
pairing- up. 
4. Some DescrrPrions. 
(a) Let us start with the commonest of all the scenes of court- 
ship—the one which had first attracted and puzzled me years ago, 
and led me to choose the Grebe as a bird to watch. 
As the birds ride on the water, very little of their under- 
surface is usually visible; but now and then a twinkle of white is 
seen. This may be merely a bird rolling half over to preen its 
belly; but if it proceed from two birds close together, this form 
of courtship is almost sure to be in progress. In such a case, the 
glass reveals that the two birds are always a pair, cock and hen ; 
they are facing each other, their beaks perhaps a foot, perhaps a 
mere couple of inches apart, their necks held up perfectly straight 
and elongated to a truly surprising extent. It is this holding up 
of the neck that shows some of the white of throat and breast. 
Their ears ave erected vertically and their ruffs are full pear- 
shaped. he few little feathers that do duty for a tail are 
cocked up as far as they will go—that is to say, about half an 
inch (fig. 11). 
In this attitude the birds proceed to go through a curious set 
ritual. 
Let us describe a particular case. A pair of birds, cock and 
hen, that had been fishing not far apart, suddenly approached 
each other, raising their necks and rufts as they did so, till by 
the time they had got face to face they were in the attitude I 
have just described. Then they both began shaking their heads 
at each other in a peculiar and formal-looking manner. Each 
bird began by waggling its head violently from side to side, 
some four or five times in quick succession, like a man nodding 
emphatic dissent. Then the quick side-to-side motion gave place 
to a slow one, and the beak and head were swung slowly across 
and back, with a seemingly vague and enquiring action, as if the 
bird were searching the horizon for it knew not what. The head 
was moved back and forth perhaps a couple of times, and then 
the violent shaking beganagain. This alternation of shaking and 
slow side-to-side swinging was repeated over and over again by 
each bird: strangely enough, the pair kept no time with each 
ether—the violent shakings of the two neither coincided nor 
alternated, but each shook and swung without any apparent 
reference to the other’s rhythm. 
After six or seven repetitions of the performance another 
action came in. After the slow swing and before the wageling 
(or sometimes, I think, taking the place of the slow swinging), 
but not every time, the bird bent its neck right back and down as 
if to preen its wings, put its beak under some of the wing-feathers 
near the tail, raised them an inch or so, let them fall, and brought 
its head swiftly hack into position for another of the violent 
shakings. This action had obviously something to do with 
