Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/204

180 doubt as to which is which, for the male is very considerably larger than the female.

The male rises once or twice, standing upright, and each time lies along again in the same attitude, the female continuing to act as described. Finally, however, the male takes the water, and begins again to fish up and bring weeds to the nest. In a little while the female ascends the nest, and lies along it just as the male has done (and she herself formerly), though perhaps with a greater earnestness and wraptness. Besides the marked difference in size, I should say that, since the descent of the male, I have kept the two birds quite distinct. Nor have they been close together, but wide apart; for the male, as he came down, swam to the bank, and then along it, whilst the female swam out into the middle of the lake. The male now comes up to the nest, where he first acts in the same way as he has done before, and as the female has just done; and then, after a few moments, leaps up, coming down and standing firm and upright on the back of the female some way forward towards the centre of it. Either he now, or the female, or the two birds together—as I think is the case—utter a sharp little note of one syllable, quickly repeated, which I can hear plainly, though faintly. But the attempt to pair is unsuccessful, the male bird being, apparently, unable to move backwards, and soon passing forwards along the back of the female, and so taking the water. Judging from this, and from the first occasion, the pairing of these birds would seem to be a matter of some difficulty. There is no second attempt, but the male begins to preen himself, and the female soon entering the water, both birds swim away.

7.50.—The two birds swim again to the nest, and the female now lies along on the water just off the bed of weeds in precisely the same attitude as on the nest during the pairing. The male bird comes up as though about to pair, then passes by her, returns and passes again, and, at the third time, swims right into the weeds near the bank, where he lies along in the same manner, just as she has been doing, and as he has before done, both on the water (though I did not then catch the import) and on the nest. There is no difference in the action and attitude of the two birds; one seems as strongly indicative as the other. The female now, whilst the male is still acting thus, or immedi-