66 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



it is better, in my opinion, to hazard a false hypothesis than to 

 ignore a fact.* 



Seven Phalaropes are now (10 a.m.) together on the water. 

 One, all at once, makes a little sort of aerial jump out of it, 

 coming down again some two or three yards away. Another 

 flies to this one and then presses upon it, a little, as in the case 

 I have just recorded. It does this several times, at varying 

 intervals, but nothing comes of it. Each time, the bird so 

 pressed upon swims a little away, until the general state of 

 things reasserts itself, the particular episode dying out of them. 

 Clearly then no particular subjection of the one sex to the other 

 is apparent here. Then one bird amongst the little covey flies 

 to another, that one jerks itself away, a third flies up, a fourth 

 follows, and there is thus an ordinary little group of one or two 

 of the one sex pressing amorously on one or two of the other, 

 though here the ordinary rule may be reversed. This continues, 

 the little followings end in little scurryings over the water, but 

 not in what can be termed a flight, and this state of things re- 

 enacts itself, once or twice, the birds spreading out between- 

 whiles, and feeding over the water, as before. The two 

 individuals first mentioned show a more distinct predilection. 

 One presses more assiduously on the other, and follows it thus, 

 in little jerks, then both turn, and the one that has been pressed 

 upon presses in its turn, but not so pressingly, and this, or 

 something of the kind, goes on for some little while, one bird 

 always pressing more than the other, but nothing coming of it 

 till they both get to the shallow shore, where much the same 

 thing, with much the same outcome, continues. All this may 

 suggest an approaching ripeness towards coition', but I see in it 

 no hint of the subjection of one sex to the other, whichever be 

 the one or the other, for the distance is too great for me to 



'!= The problem involved in the fact is still raore ignored, the reason, I 

 think, being that whilst most scientific naturalists are " orthodox " scientists, 

 very few psychical researchers are also naturalists. Wallace was, of course, 

 a great exception, but he kept the two severely apart, nor do I judge him to 

 have been a great watcher of animals, but, rather, a gifted handler. For two 

 striking examples of the fact, or class of fact, itself, I would refer the reader 

 to ' Three Summers among the Birds of Eussian Lapland,' by Henry J. 

 Pearson (1904), pp. 32-33, and to my own article, there referred to, in the 

 ' Saturday Eeview' of August 1st, 1903. 



