NOTES AND QUERIES. 197 



two were walking side by side, and, it being a back view, I noticed at 

 once that the tail of one of them was expanded, the white feathers 

 being conspicuously shown. This one held the neck a little high, 

 rigid, and curved like a sickle, the head and beak pointing straight 

 down to the ground. It walked with a sort of stately high step, 

 having a good deal of spring in it (such as I have once before noted in 

 winter), and kept a little in front of the other. By reason of this 

 display — for such it may certainly be termed — I took it to be the male, 

 and, as the sequel will show, it may just as well have been as the 

 other, the feathers of whose tail were but little, if at all, expanded, and 

 who in all other respects presented a quite ordinary appearance, 

 seeming — I think, as a consequence — to be a good deal smaller. All 

 at once the displaying bird crouched, upon which the pairing took 

 place, the supposed female acting as, under such circumstances, the 

 male bird normally acts. She then assumed all the port and aspect 

 that the other one had previously had — but had now quite lost — and, 

 thus transfigured, made a proud little stately march in front of him, 

 crouching then, in her turn, upon which there was a second — and 

 reversed — pairing, which, however, was very short, and appeared to 

 me to be but partially successful. The Moor-hens, in fact, acted 

 exactly as did the Great Crested Grebes that I watched ; and if this 

 be not a relic of hermaphroditism — functional hermaphroditism, real 

 or simulated, it certainly is — I know not how to account for it. A few 

 minutes afterwards, on the opposite side of the water, precisely the 

 same thing, in every particular, took place, except that here it was 

 obvious that the second attempt to pair was a failure ; the action, here, 

 of the first male bird — if I may so speak — after the first pairing, was 

 even more pronounced than on the other occasion. After the second 

 attempt, only, both birds seemed as satisfied as though it had been 

 successful — an important point, I think, to bear in mind in considering 

 the meaning of these curious relations, for the second noces may be in 

 process of becoming a formality, though I certainly do not think it 

 has yet become one either in this species or the Grebe. — Edmund 

 Selous (19, Clarence Square, Cheltenham). 



Notes from Aberdeen. — Lapwings (Vanellus cristatus) appeared here 

 on Feb. 23rd ; Lark (Alauda arvensis) singing, Feb. 23rd. Compara- 

 tively little singing heard this spring. Curlews (Numenius arquata) on 

 March 7th ; Pied Wagtail (Motacilla yarrelli), March 14th ; Grey and 

 Yellow Wagtail (M. melanope), April 3rd. These birds are rather more 

 common than usual. Grey Eedshank Tattler (Totanus calidris), April 



