Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/186

162 weeds edging the structure. From her sitting so steadily, and her haste to return to the nest, I have little doubt that this is the female bird, and if so, as the male dived for weeds and brought them to the nest in the most accustomed manner, I imagine that both birds help in the building of it, for one can hardly suppose that the male alone does so. Whilst sitting the bird has her neck bent back between the shoulders in an easy curve, the head being just raised above the back, and held straight, with the beak pointing forward. On any alarm it is stretched a little forward, or raised straight up. When the female has sat like this for about an hour, the male again swims up, and, diving, brings some more weeds to the nest. He does this two or three times, bringing once a large green stalk of some plant or lily, and again quite a mass of weeds. The birds then, I think, arrange this a little together, but not much in this way appears to be done, and what is, principally by the male. There is then a short interval, during which the male swims about at a moderate distance from the nest, returning to which he now, to my astonishment, springs upon it, and, raising himself upright, or almost so, on his legs, which are placed as far back as a Penguin's, he pairs, or attempts to pair, with the female. If successful, the act is of extremely short duration, and, taking the water again, the male bird swims away. He returns, and again swims away several times at rather longer intervals than formerly, sometimes, but not often, bringing a little weed in his bill. During this time the female bird is occupied a little, but not, I think, very much, in arranging the materials of the nest. She is moving her head and neck freely about; but, if I mistake not, when she does this she is only preening herself. On one of the returns of the male bird, I notice that she bends down her head so that the beak, I think, touches the water, lying thus flat all along the nest; and whilst in this position the male swims to that side of the nest towards which her tail is turned, and seems two or three times to be on the point of leaping up again in order to pair as before, which, however, he does not do, but again swims off. The pairing, then, of these birds takes place on the nest, which, it would now seem, is not completed; nor can I think, under these circumstances, that the eggs are yet laid, or even that the hen is sitting to lay them. It would appear, that