182 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Darwin, speaking of domesticated birds, says (' The Descent 

 of Man,' p. 415) " these are often pampered by high feeding, 

 and sometimes have their instincts vitiated to an extreme degree. 

 Of this latter fact I could give sufficient proofs with Pigeons, and 

 especially with Fowls, but they cannot be here related." 



Possibly he may refer, amongst others, to such instances as 

 the foregoing ; but, if we can thus account for them in the case of 

 Pigeons, what are we to say in regard to a pair of Great Crested 

 Grebes, living a natural life upon a sheet of water as large per- 

 haps as some of the smaller broads or meres ? If we say it is 

 vitiated or perverted instinct, still there must be a natural cause 

 for what we regard as the perversion. As is well known, her- 

 maphroditism preceded, in the march of life, the separation of 

 the sexes, and all of the higher vertebrate animals, including 

 man, retain in their organisms the traces of this early state. If 

 the structure has been partly retained, it does not seem unlikely 

 that the feelings connected with it have, through a long succes- 

 sion of generations, been retained also, and that, though more or 

 less latent, they are still more or less liable to become occa- 

 sionally active. This view would not only explain such actions 

 as I have here recorded, but many others scattered throughout 

 the whole animal kingdom, and might even help to guide us in 

 the wide domain of human ethics. 



May 2ith. — Same place at 6.15 a.m. The birds are floating 

 together again, like pork-pies on the water, but up till now (7.15) 

 they have not approached the nest. I have then to leave. 



May 2ot]i. — Between 3 and 3.50 p.m. the birds are not at the 

 nest, but swimming about near the o^jposite bank, and I think I 

 notice in them some disposition to build another nest. The 

 male, having swum to some distance from the bank, returns very 

 fast to it with the other Grebe. All at once he dives, and, 

 coming up near the bank, makes a sudden dart, and spears 

 forward with his beak, to the confusion and flight of a Moor-hen. 

 It is now, therefore, evident that one way, at least, of fighting 

 adopted by these birds, is to dive, and either attack under water 

 or just after rising— I say one because, on the first occasion, 

 when I saw the male attack a Moor-hen near the first nest, he did 

 not dive. I now think it probable that the first Moor-hen was 

 attacked because he was near the platform of the male Grebe 



