Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/378

350 love-journey to the nest, which was at a considerable distance off? There are, I believe, some—possibly many—peoples amongst whom the ceremony of marriage consists in (or includes) the bride and bridegroom sitting or standing together, either side by side or opposite each other, and holding or grasping something between them. The object, whatever it is, is symbolical of the married state. In every essential except the clear consciousness that they were doing so (to how great an extent this was present or wanting it would, perhaps, be difficult to say), these Grebes, as it appears to me, went through a marriage ceremony.