9
Back Bay Basin,
Boston, Mass.
1909
Feb. 27
(No 9)
in diving for food, or floating idly on the glossy
surface, preening their feathers every now and then.
The others, while actively employed in "showing off"
in the presence of the females, indulged, as I have
said, in a variety of movements, gesticulations and
postures all more or less grotesque and probably most
of them peculiar to the season of love making if
not also essentially characteristic of the ceremonial
of Whistler courtship. I saw them all repeated
many times, under conditions very favorable for
close and accurate observation. For convenience of
treatment in describing them I shall first
designate them respectively by the following terms
which, if somewhat fanciful, are, I trust, appropriate
or, at least, helpfully suggestive:
Whistler courtship
Drakes "showing off" before the females