Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/239

Rh two were walking side by side, and, it being a back view, I noticed at once that the tail of one of them was expanded, the white feathers being conspicuously shown. This one held the neck a little high, rigid, and curved like a sickle, the head and beak pointing straight down to the ground. It walked with a sort of stately high step, having a good deal of spring in it (such as I have once before noted in winter), and kept a little in front of the other. By reason of this display—for such it may certainly be termed—I took it to be the male, and, as the sequel will show, it may just as well have been as the other, the feathers of whose tail were but little, if at all, expanded, and who in all other respects presented a quite ordinary appearance, seeming—I think, as a consequence—to be a good deal smaller. All at once the displaying bird crouched, upon which the pairing took place, the supposed female acting as, under such circumstances, the male bird normally acts. She then assumed all the port and aspect that the other one had previously had—but had now quite lost—and, thus transfigured, made a proud little stately march in front of him, crouching then, in her turn, upon which there was a second—and reversed—pairing, which, however, was very short, and appeared to me to be but partially successful. The Moor-hens, in fact, acted exactly as did the Great Crested Grebes that I watched; and if this be not a relic of hermaphroditism—functional hermaphroditism, real or simulated, it certainly is—I know not how to account for it. A few minutes afterwards, on the opposite side of the water, precisely the same thing, in every particular, took place, except that here it was obvious that the second attempt to pair was a failure; the action, here, of the first male bird—if I may so speak—after the first pairing, was even more pronounced than on the other occasion. After the second attempt, only, both birds seemed as satisfied as though it had been successful—an important point, I think, to bear in mind in considering the meaning of these curious relations, for the second noces may be in process of becoming a formality, though I certainly do not think it has yet become one either in this species or the Grebe.— (19, Clarence Square, Cheltenham).

Notes from Aberdeen.—Lapwings (Vanellus cristatus) appeared here on Feb. 23rd; Lark (Alauda arvensis) singing, Feb. 23rd. Comparatively little singing heard this spring. Curlews (Numenius arquata) on March 7th; Pied Wagtail (Motacilla yarrelli), March 14th; Grey and Yellow Wagtail (M. melanope), April 3rd. These birds are rather more common than usual. Grey Redshank Tattler (Totanus calidris), April