COURTSHIP OF THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 501 
body, flat upon the surface of the water; the ruff and ears were 
depressed (fig. 8). So convinced was I that this was a dead bird 
that I at once began revolving plans for wading in and fetching 
it out directly the other bird should have passed it by. Mean- 
while, I wanted to see whether the living would show ary interest in 
the dead, and was therefore much interested to see the swimming 
bird swim up to the tail-end of the corpse and then a little way 
alongside of it, bending its head down a bit as if to examine the 
body. Then it came back to the tail-end, and then, to my 
extreme bewilderment, proceeded to scramble out of the water on 
to the said tail-end; there it stood for some seconds, in the 
customary and very ungraceful out-of-water attitude—the body 
nearly upright, leaning slightly forward, the neck arched back and 
down, with a snaky Cormorant-look about it, the ruff and ears 
depressed. Then it proceeded to waddle awkwardly along the 
body to the head end, slipping off thence into the water and 
eracefulness once more. Hardly had it done this when the 
supposed corpse lifted its head and neck, gave a sort of jump, and 
it, 400,.was Swimming in the water by the other’s side. It was 
now seen that the “ corpse” had been resting its body on a half- 
made nest whose top was scarcely above the water, and it was 
this which had given it the curious hunched-up look. The two 
swam about together for a bit, but soon parted company without 
evincing any further particular interest in each other. 
Both these birds had crests of very much the average size, so 
that it was hard to tell their sex ; but I think that the “ corpse” 
was a hen, the other bird a cock. 
The meaning of this action (which I only saw this one time) 
remained extremely problematical to me while I was at the 
Reservoirs. The mystery will, however, be solved in the next 
section, and so let us anticipate and call the attitude of the 
“corpse” the passive, that of the bird that climbed on the 
eS) 
*“ corpse’s ” back the active pairing attitude. 
5. Tar RELATIONS OF THE SEXES IN THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 
(i.) The Act of Pairing. 
As I say, it was especially the proceeding last described which 
puzzled me; and it was not till I had got home and looked up 
the literature, that I found a welcome paper by Selous (01) * 
which exactly dovetailed into my own observations. I had 
been mainly concerned with the behaviour of the birds on 
the open water and during incubation; he had paid special 
attention to nest-building and pairing His observations solve 
the mystery that has so far surrounded the Grebes’ actual 
pairing ; by them it is now established that the attitude which 
so puzzled me is adopted always, and only, for the purpose of 
coition, and that coition takes place solely on the nest. 1 should 
* A short summary of this paper will be found on p. 529, 
