Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/200

176 the nest, as though to take it to the platform; then hesitates, turns, and places it on the nest. The next bunch of weed he passes to the female, who takes it from him and deposits it on the nest, whilst he swims a little farther, and dives for more.

7.47.—Male taking a cargo to platform. He takes four in succession, then meets female at nest, and passes her a load as before, which, however, she allows to drop. One of the birds now jumps on to the nest, and sits there a moment or so; then off again. I think it was the female, but am not quite certain.

7.55.—The male is now again taking loads to his platform, and also to the nest; but he has taken some four to the former, only one to the latter. He then takes two more to the platform. I now again see the third Grebe in the distance, but he keeps aloof, and plays no part in the drama.

The morning's work seems now (at 8.10) to be finished, and I can only see one of the two birds a long way from the nest. I leave at 8.15.

This occasional hesitation of the male between the nest and his platform, as though he were in doubt to which to take his load of weed to, is a thing to be noted, for it may throw a light on the possible origin of the habit of making such a platform—that is, supposing such a habit to exist; but as to this, other questions now arise. Why should the birds, having almost completed one nest, have commenced making another? Let us suppose that, owing to restlessness at the destruction of the first nest, or, again, to what we may call a wandering of the instinct—which last a male bird might be more subject to in nest-building than the female on account of the habit having been more lately acquired by the progenitors of the former than of the latter, and being therefore less fixed—let us suppose that from either of these causes, or from some other cause, the male bird had wandered, and begun to deposit his loads in another place; then, the female, seeing him do so, might have followed his example, in which case what had seemed a platform made for a special purpose would have become another nest. On the other hand, let us suppose that the female is not to be led away by the unsteadiness of the male, and that she by persevering