346 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



chaperonings — of nature, seem alwa3's to be fearful lest their 

 precocious young protegee should " go too far." " Supernsitviral " 

 is an absurd word, if construed literall}'', as it seems to be by a 

 grjeat many people. With regard to such birds as domestic 

 Pigeons and poultry, were anything very outre in their sexual 

 relations to be observed, it would be natural to attribute it to 

 high feeding or artificial conditions generally. But in how many 

 wild species (living a wild life), and upon how many occasions 

 have such matters — such intima arcana — been observed ? More- 

 over, as I have already remarked, the thing goes deeper, and 

 requires something of a more general and abiding nature to 

 explain it. As to this, I am unable, myself, to add to what 

 I have already suggested ; but I would just en passant (in case it 

 might have any significance) draw attention to the fact that in 

 the Great Crested Grebe we have an example of a specially- 

 adorned species, the sexes of which are identical, except in size. 

 This, I believe, is not a common thing amongst birds. 



I believe, however, that facts such as I have here recounted 

 may throw light upon much that is puzzling. It is a general 

 view that in the human species the masculine and feminine 

 nature difi'er considerably, if not essentially ; but facts pointing 

 in a contrary direction have sometimes been adduced, as, for in- 

 stance, that many poets exhibit in portions of their writings 

 qualities that seem feminine rather than masculine. This has 

 been specially remarked of Shelley, but to me it appears much 

 more obvious, and beyond mere matter of opinion in the case of 

 great creators of character such as — to take the most familiar 

 and salient example — Shakespeare. Is it not, really, a very 

 remarkable thing that a man and not a woman should have 

 created Cleopatra, Cordelia, Hermione, Perdita, Constance 

 (those mother-scenes in King John), and so forth ? Anyone, I 

 suppose, who has ever read Shakespeare to purpose, must have 

 received the impression that such perfect and consistent organ- 

 isms, such actual living growths, such vitally informed entities, 

 are beyond the powers of even the keenest observation — that 

 they must have been felt rather than imagined even, and there- 

 fore must have belonged to the essential being of the mind from 

 which they emanated. Yet to say that a man can truly and justly 

 feel the feminine nature in its more essential manifestations is to 



