348 TEE ZOOLOGIST. 



appear to be) — by there being any check or obstacle in the way of 

 the ordinary sexual instinct ? To talk of perversion or vitiation 

 seems to me merely to shirk difficulties, and substitute words 

 for an attempt at a rational explanation. Here are two wild 

 creatures, whose acts must, I think, be assumed to be the out- 

 come of a genuine primary feeling or instinct, unchecked, on the 

 one hand, by any sense of impropriety, and, on the other, 

 unassisted by any pruriency of imagination as we understand 

 it.. Each of them acts — and must therefore, also, feel — in 

 turn as the male and female. They are hermaphrodites, in 

 fact, as far as feeling and — to the extent possible — acting is 

 concerned. Vast as must be the interval between them and 

 their hermaphrodite progenitors, I can, myself, see no other 

 explanation of the facts than their having had such progenitors, 

 and if a cause so remote can reach so far down the stream of 

 time, why not farther still ? 



Returning, now, to the sport or antic which immediately 

 preceded the pairing — or whatever it may be called — of these 

 two Grebes, the special feature of this was, I think, the 

 mutual holding b}' them, in their bills, of a piece of weed which 

 the male had excitedly dived for and brought up. For the 

 excitement of both birds appeared to me to refer in a special 

 manner to this possession, nor do I think that the upright 

 attitude was assumed in order to display the plumage, though it 

 necessarily had this effect. The weed alone, as it seemed to 

 me, was the occasion of the curious waddly steps backwards 

 and forwards, and it was seized by the female either immediately 

 before or immediately after she stood up. True it was at last 

 dropped, but the instant it was both birds set out for the nest, 

 and we have seen what followed. A suspicion may, perhaps, 

 cross the minds of some that the supposed weed was a fish, 

 and that the birds were fighting for it. But besides that the 

 consummation which I have just alluded to is opposed to this 

 theory, it is in other respects untenable. The birds were close, 

 for the glasses, and I saw the dank, green, dripping substance 

 quite distinctly. Not only, too, have these Grebes never fought 

 (and they might as well fight for the water as for fish), but they 

 have never had, whilst under my observation, one inimical 

 moment. Nor is the particular matter which I have here 



