The Zoologist/4th series, vol 5 (1901)/Issue 723/Observational Diary of the Habits of Great Crested Grebe and Peewit, Selous

by Edmund Selous

 

AN OBSERVATIONAL DIARY OF THE HABITS—
MOSTLY DOMESTIC—OF THE GREAT CRESTED
GREBE (PODICIPES CRISTATUS), AND OF THE
PEEWIT (VANELLUS VULGARIS), WITH SOME
GENERAL REMARKS

By Edmund Selous.

 

I must premise that for many mornings before the date at which I commenced to take notes I had watched this pair of Grebes, but seen nothing which struck me as of interest. I could not detect a nest, nor were the birds building; so that, judging by the dates and the working hours of last year, I thought all this was to come. As it turned out, however, last year was no criterion for this, and I regret now that I did not begin watching sooner, and stay, each morning, later. As the nest—which, I afterwards found, had been already completed—seemed much less massive, and generally inferior to the ones I had previously seen made, it would have interested me to have observed whether there was any corresponding difference in the building of it, anything suggesting that it was built with an object other than that of incubation—or rather, with such other object alone. Of this, however, I will speak later. It is, of course, impossible actually to prove that these Grebes were the same ones that I have before given an account of.^[1] But as they were the one and only pair on the same sheet of water, and as the nest was in approximately the same place, I assume and feel personally quite certain that they were. As will have been gathered, though I have not expressly stated it, there was only one pair of Grebes (and, for a few days, an odd bird) on the water last year. I now commence my diary.

April 22nd, 1901.—Something is now visible in the conduct of the two Grebes, which seems to betoken the approach of nuptial activities. They seem to become excited, occasionally, together. One dives, and is instantly followed by the other. They dive, too, sometimes, in a more splashy way, particularly once, when the male, I think, went down, kicking the water up behind him in an exuberant spirit. Once one of them—I think again the male—comes up with something in his bill, which he dabbles about on the surface, and seems to sport with, the other coming close up and appearing to take an interest. I do not think this something is a fish; it seems too weighty and voluminous, nor do I catch a gleam. I think it is weeds, and pregnant with associations of nest-making, love-making, dalliance on the nest. Once, too, the male flies suddenly some way off over the water, and sometimes the two come close together, fronting each other, and snapping their bills a little. Once or twice also the female bird—as I think it is—has lain all along on the water. I can see no sign of a nest yet, and do not think one has been begun.

April 23rd.—These Grebes have a note which may be described as a kind of bastard quack, for it has much of the qualities of the latter, though harsher and much thinner. In my experience, however, it is seldom uttered, inasmuch as I had not noticed it before the other day, though distance may have had something to do with this. Whilst floating on the water they will sometimes stick a foot right up in the air, and waggle it. One of the pair—the female—has just done so, and it has a very odd effect. Both birds are now fishing. Each has caught a fish, and swallowed it on the surface. There was nothing further to note up till the time I left, which was about 6.30 a.m.

April 24th.—Arrive about 5.30 a.m., and during the earlier part of the morning see nothing to note down. Going away after some time, I return about 7, and then notice one of the birds lying along in the way I have so often described, on a thin patch of weeds extending a little from the shore. This bird is certainly the male, and—just as before—the female swims up, and makes several times as though to spring up also, going and returning, but each time failing to do so. The male then comes off, but almost immediately leaps up on the weeds again, just as he had done on the nest last year, and, assuming the same attitude, there is the same scene over again. Afterwards, when both the birds had swum away, I walked along the bank to the place. It was, as it had looked, a thin line of weeds, which, though growing, had more the appearance of driftage. Just where the one bird had lain, however, the weeds were thicker, and it certainly looked as though they had been added to. This suggests, of course, that here may be the beginning of a nest; yet of building it I have, as yet, seen no sign. Possibly the birds find pairing in the water difficult, if not impossible, and therefore choose for this purpose a natural foundation of weeds, to which they add when greater stability is needed.

April 25th.—Arrive at 6.30 a.m., and find the birds swimming about. In a little while they both swim to the same little belt of weeds, but if, as is probable, with the intention of pairing, this is not followed up. Several times they front each other in the water, and, with their snaky necks reared up, tâter a little with the beak, or make little tosses of their heads in the air.

It is pretty to see these Grebes drink, which they do with a little scoop of their bills on the water, raising, then, the head quickly, till the beak spears perpendicularly up at the sky.

8 o'clock.—The two have just swum to the weeds again, and one of them—I think, this time, the female—lies along amidst them, but without jumping up on to anything. There is nothing further, however, and they soon swim away. But very soon afterwards they return, and one—I think, the male—jumping up and lying along, the other, in a moment or two, follows, and pairing takes place. The second upspringing bird—the one that has just, apparently, performed the office and function of the male—now comes off the platform of weeds, passing forward along the body of the other one, and leaving him upon it. It certainly seems the smaller of the two, and when the other, shortly after, also takes the water, and both are together, this latter seems again, as before, to be the larger, and the one which I have always known and recognized as the male. I carefully keep the two separate with the glasses. A little while afterwards the birds again approach the weeds, and again the male (quite certainly) leaps up and lies along them. He evidently waits for the other—the female—but she this time does not comply. He comes down, follows her a little, they turn, he again leaps up, waits, looks round and waits, but to no purpose. Coming off again, he now (for the first time that I have yet seen) lays some weeds on the place—whether nest or otherwise—and the female then dives and lays a piece too. They lay two or three pieces between them, but in a very perfunctory manner, and then swim away. Now when the male, as I believe it to have been, leapt up the first time and pairing ensued, he assumed a peculiar pose, curling his neck over and down, with the bill pointing at the ground (weeds) perhaps six inches above it, and stood thus, fixed and rigid, for some moments (as though making a point) before sinking down and lying all along. There was no mistaking the entirely sexual character of this strange performance, the peculiar fixed rigidity full of import and expression. On the two subsequent occasions of his leaping up he made precisely this same pose; his actions from first to last—from his approach and leap to his lying along—were identical in every respect. That it was the larger of the two birds on these two second occasions (the one that I have seen last year act as the male as well as as the female) there is no doubt whatever, and I have hardly, if at all, less doubt that it was the same one (the male) on the first occasion also, and that the female acted as the male bird usually does.

April 26th.—Shortly after I come (about 7 a.m.) the Grebes approach the point of weeds, and, when just off it, front each other, toying with their bills. There is nothing further, however, and shortly both swim together to the opposite shore, and begin fishing. I see each of them come up with a fish, and swallow it. They then swim back to the platform or nest, and the male, without any doubt (that is to say, the considerably larger one which has performed the usual office of the male on various occasions last year), leaps up, and lies along precisely as described yesterday. The female comes up, and seems about to ascend, but (just as last year, both with her and the male) does not do so, and after a little swims out to a short distance, and remains riding at anchor. The male looks round at her once or twice, then stands up, manipulates the weeds a little with his bill, lies along as before, and waits again. This proving to no purpose, he comes off, and rejoins the female, and both swim quietly in each other's company. This is at about 7.30. At 8.15 the birds return, and there is just the same thing in all essential particulars, the male pulling the weeds about in a desultory manner before coming off into the water.

8.40.—The two again at the weeds; the female leaps up, makes the pose, and lies along just as the male has, on previous occasions, done. The male now swims ardently up, but becomes, as it were, nervous, and remains on the water. After a little the female comes off, and, very shortly afterwards, the other—the male—leaps on to the raft, poses and lies along, just as he has done before, and just as the female has done a moment ago. But, as is so frequently the case, the matter proceeds no further.

May 1st.—Got to the water at about 7.30 a.m., and could see no Grebes there. Walking along the shore to the weeds, I found the nest—for I now think it is one—apparently no further advanced than when I last saw it. It is hardly raised above the water, and quite unnoticeable through the glasses, or when not looked directly down upon from quite near. Walking back, I saw both the birds in a part of the water they do not so often visit, and for some time, now, they fished, and I saw them catch and eat several fish. Then they fronted each other in the water, and, erecting their long necks, tâtéd a little with the bills in their usual manner, after which they seemed going to the nest, but the intention did not hold. There was now another long interval, and then just the same again, and afterwards I came away without anything further having taken place.

May 2nd.—At 7 a.m. I find the Grebes as before, swimming lazily about, that is to say, and catching and eating a fish now and again, with an easy grace. Nothing of a nuptial character takes place till after 8, when something interesting, and which I have not before seen, does. The two are on the opposite side of the water to the nest, and, fronting each other, tâter first with their beaks. Then the female dives, and comes up with a small piece of weed, which she, I think, lets drop. Immediately afterwards—but whether before or after she comes up I cannot quite say—the male dives too—excitedly, I think—and, coming up with a larger piece of weed, the two again front each other, and all at once both of them leap entirely upright in the water, standing, it would seem, on their feet, either upon the water itself or on the mud or weeds just below its surface. This latter I think it must be, since they are now right on shore, and their movements seem to imply a firm basis of support. Still, they have dived, and been entirely hidden in almost, if not exactly, the same spot, so that its shallowness seems a little difficult to understand. They look like two Penguins, and each, as they stand face to face, must have the fullest view, not only of the front, or throatal, part (which is silvery) of the long and straightly stretched-up necks, but of the whole broad silver surface of the breast and body. Immediately after they have assumed this upright attitude, the hen-bird catches hold of the dangling end of the weed which the male has brought up, and both, holding it between them, make little waddling steps, now forwards, now backwards, but not going more than a few inches either way. I would say that they chassé'd—for it had that effect—but the motion was as described, and not from side to side. Even though it is a dull day, with no sun visible, the effect of this—of the two broad silver shields—is most magnificent. They gleam dazzlingly, yet softly; but what must it be when the whole air and water is dancing in glorious sunlight, as it has been all this week, whilst the most tiresomely timed influenza was keeping me indoors! Whether it is a conscious display or not—and the part which the weed here plays makes me doubt this—the birds could not have adopted an attitude or a position in relation to one another better adapted to show off the beauties of their plumage as a whole. The entire surface of silky silver is exhibited by each to each, whilst the crest and tippet is also much en évidence.

Having remained thus—upright and moving backwards and forwards as described—for quite an appreciable space of time, both birds sink down again on the water, the piece of weed which they had all the while been holding falling disregarded between them, and the male sets off, full of intention, to the nest on the opposite shore. The female follows, but she lags, pauses when about half-way there, and is some way behind when her husband reaches the nest, and, leaping up, lies along on it in the usual manner. Having come up, she makes ready to ascend, then pauses, swims out again, returns, and does the same several times, the male all the while lying in the attitude he has at first assumed. Then, however—after all these disappointments—and having first looked round, as on former occasions, he begins to move and arrange the weeds with his bill, and afterwards, taking the water, rejoins the female. They float negligently on the water for a little, then swim together to the nest, and, keeping them perfectly distinct through the glasses, I can say with conviction that it is the male who again, now, leaps up, makes the pose, and assumes the final attitude so often mentioned. The female now acts as before for a little, but on—I think—the first return after swimming a short distance out, springs up, and pairing takes place, she performing, as far as attitude and relative position are concerned—absolutely as far as the eye is capable of detecting—the function and office of the male. Immediately after the pairing she comes forward along the body of the male—on which (as in every case upon either side) she stands perfectly upright—and takes the water, whilst the latter remains on the nest for a little while afterwards before coming down and following her—for she has now swum away. As just before in the ascent, the glasses again say decidedly that it is the male that has descended last from the nest, and the female that has come off before and swum away. The difference in size between the two is very apparent, and if we say (as anyone seeing this morning's drama alone would say) that the larger bird is the female, then I have seen this very bird act last year, time and time again, as the male, whilst the other (which we must in that case suppose to be the male) acted, in the pairing process, the usual part of the female. It must also be remembered that, although last year the transmutation of sexes—as we may call it—between the two birds was not carried by the female to this extreme point, yet up to this point, and in every other particular I saw each of them assume, alternately, and in more or less immediate succession, the character proper to the other. Personally, therefore, I have no further doubt as to this salient peculiarity (for as such it strikes me) in the sexual relations of these Grebes, and, as I can see nothing here, in the shape of artificial conditions, to suggest its being an individual one (or, rather, an idiosyncrasy shared by two individuals), I suppose it to be specific. If so, that vitiation of the sexual instincts in domesticated birds to which Darwin may perhaps allude ('The Descent of Man,' p. 415) may not really be due to artificial conditions, but natural, in the ordinary sense of the word; for, of course, in a larger sense, everything is, and must be, natural, a fact not sufficiently appreciated by those who, in their investigations—or rather, let us say, their chaperonings—of nature, seem always to be fearful lest their precocious young protégée should "go too far." "Supernatural" is an absurd word, if construed literally, as it seems to be by a great many people. With regard to such birds as domestic Pigeons and poultry, were anything very outré in their sexual relations to be observed, it would be natural to attribute it to high feeding or artificial conditions generally. But in how many wild species (living a wild life), and upon how many occasions have such matters—such intima arcana—been observed? Moreover, as I have already remarked, the thing goes deeper, and requires something of a more general and abiding nature to explain it. As to this, I am unable, myself, to add to what I have already suggested; but I would just en passant (in case it might have any significance) draw attention to the fact that in the Great Crested Grebe we have an example of a specially adorned species, the sexes of which are identical, except in size. This, I believe, is not a common thing amongst birds.

I believe, however, that facts such as I have here recounted may throw light upon much that is puzzling. It is a general view that in the human species the masculine and feminine nature differ considerably, if not essentially; but facts pointing in a contrary direction have sometimes been adduced, as, for instance, that many poets exhibit in portions of their writings qualities that seem feminine rather than masculine. This has been specially remarked of Shelley, but to me it appears much more obvious, and beyond mere matter of opinion in the case of great creators of character such as—to take the most familiar and salient example—Shakespeare. Is it not, really, a very remarkable thing that a man and not a woman should have created Cleopatra, Cordelia, Hermione, Perdita, Constance (those mother-scenes in King John), and so forth? Anyone, I suppose, who has ever read Shakespeare to purpose, must have received the impression that such perfect and consistent organisms, such actual living growths, such vitally informed entities, are beyond the powers of even the keenest observation—that they must have been felt rather than imagined even, and therefore must have belonged to the essential being of the mind from which they emanated. Yet to say that a man can truly and justly feel the feminine nature in its more essential manifestations is to say no less than that he is in his psychology as much a woman as a man; which is what, for my part (and vice versâ), I am inclined to believe—though, of course, in ordinary persons, the one or the other portion is, generally, more or less in abeyance.

Now it will be admitted—or, at any rate, it seems likely—that the principal differences in the psychology of the sexes have their root in the sexual separation itself, inasmuch as certain main channels of thought and feeling seem by this to be cut off from the one sex or the other, especially from the male one. In the 'Heart of Midlothian,' the old hag, who has once nursed Robertson, says to the thief, Levitt, "And man can never ken what woman feels for the bairn she has held, first, to her bosom"; to which he replies, "To be sure, we have no experience." Were this and many other similar propositions so true as they appear to be, I believe that such man-creators as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, &c., would either have left female man alone, as not being content with mere portrait-painting—what we call "study of character"—or else that their productions in it—due to ulterior motives—would have been as notoriously dummies as they are notoriously not. But if either sex has lying latent within it (by inheritance dating from a long-past ancestry) the whole stock of feelings proper to the other, and if what we call creative genius is, or at any rate involves, the power of recalling and shaping these and other—to the many—practically lost possessions, then that quality of being another sex which a great poet or writer exhibits in his work is less difficult to understand. There being a foundation (the mental equivalent of those structural retainments which both sexes possess) dating from an incalculable antiquity, all the subsequent modifications and developments might conceivably have been added to it, the civilized man or woman receiving respectively the latest and highest touchings (not so extraordinarily high perhaps) of civilized womanhood or manhood, to lie—for the most part undreamt of—in that region of their mentality which has come right down from long-past hermaphrodite forms. Should this appear incredible, I would ask what is the real meaning of the facts which I have here given in regard to these Grebes, and which obviously cannot be explained—(as some other apparent abnormalities of this class observable amongst animals may appear to be)—by there being any check or obstacle in the way of the ordinary sexual instinct? To talk of perversion or vitiation seems to me merely to shirk difficulties, and substitute words for an attempt at a rational explanation. Here are two wild creatures, whose acts must, I think, be assumed to be the outcome of a genuine primary feeling or instinct, unchecked, on the one hand, by any sense of impropriety, and, on the other, unassisted by any pruriency of imagination as we understand it. Each of them acts—and must therefore, also, feel—in turn as the male and female. They are hermaphrodites, in fact, as far as feeling and—to the extent possible—acting is concerned. Vast as must be the interval between them and their hermaphrodite progenitors, I can, myself, see no other explanation of the facts than their having had such progenitors, and if a cause so remote can reach so far down the stream of time, why not farther still?

Returning, now, to the sport or antic which immediately preceded the pairing—or whatever it may be called—of these two Grebes, the special feature of this was, I think, the mutual holding by them, in their bills, of a piece of weed which the male had excitedly dived for and brought up. For the excitement of both birds appeared to me to refer in a special manner to this possession, nor do I think that the upright attitude was assumed in order to display the plumage, though it necessarily had this effect. The weed alone, as it seemed to me, was the occasion of the curious waddly steps backwards and forwards, and it was seized by the female either immediately before or immediately after she stood up. True it was at last dropped, but the instant it was both birds set out for the nest, and we have seen what followed. A suspicion may, perhaps, cross the minds of some that the supposed weed was a fish, and that the birds were fighting for it. But besides that the consummation which I have just alluded to is opposed to this theory, it is in other respects untenable. The birds were close, for the glasses, and I saw the dank, green, dripping substance quite distinctly. Not only, too, have these Grebes never fought (and they might as well fight for the water as for fish), but they have never had, whilst under my observation, one inimical moment. Nor is the particular matter which I have here recorded of a unique nature. Other birds act, sometimes, in more or less the same way. I have seen a pair of Shags at the nest (but not whilst occupied in building it) hold between them a piece of seaweed, and move their heads about with it in a strange half-coquettish manner, as though they knew what they meant. I have seen Gulls and the Great Skua pick a blade or two of grass, and then run with it to the partner bird, apparently only to show it, for it was dropped and not used in building the nest, which was not just in that place. Each time there was a peculiar kind of consciousness in the manner and look of either bird, impossible not to notice and equally so to describe. I have also seen one of two rival Wheatears, in the midst of violently excited movements, catch up a piece of grass or stick, and run and lay it in a depression of the ground out of which it had just started. In most of these cases, as it has appeared to me, the object thus seized hold of is in the nature of a symbol. That anything used in the construction of the nest should—during the nuptial season—fill the bird's mind with a picture of its construction, and with all the ideas and associations connected with this, we can understand; and, as male birds fight together, at this time, for the possession of the female, it does not seem impossible that a vision of what such possession implies should sometimes pass through the mind of either combatant, when not in the actual frenzy of combat. In the case of the Wheatear, however, there may be another way of explaining this action, to which I will recur. In the other instances its symbolic nature seems more apparent. Especially is this the case with these two Grebes. They seized hold of and moved about with the weed, very much as a man might seize and wave a banner, and a certain set of pleasurable ideas and emotions—to do with nest-building, courtship, dalliance on the nest—became, as it were, focussed by their doing so. Held by both, it was a symbol of what both felt, and of all that related to their mutual affection. I do not, of course, mean to suggest that the birds were conscious of the symbolical meaning of what they did in the way in which a man would be, but if their action was not in its essential nature symbolical, then will anyone explain its precise significance, and why it was so immediately followed by an eager 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.

(To be continued.)

 

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1. Ante, p. 161.