A FAR ADVENTURE 309 



"That's to please the heii-bird or to call her, I 

 suppose," said Shan, '4ike the drumming of the 

 Ruffed Grouse?" 



''Perhaps," was the reply, "or it resembles the 

 showing off of the Peacock and Turkey. It is 

 more like the extraordinary antics of Reinhardt 's 

 Partridge, a Greenland and Labrador species, 

 which runs around the female bird in swift circles, 

 his tail spread and his wings trailing. As he be- 

 comes more and more excited, he ruffles every 

 feather of his body and, with outstretched neck 

 and breast pressed against the ground, he thrusts 

 himself along, growling like a beast." 



"And how does the Laysan Albatross do its 

 cake-walk ? ' ' 



"That," the Feather Man answered, "I expect 

 to be able to study in detail from your photo- 

 graphs. You see," he continued, "I don't think 

 the expedition's photographer is likely to do more 

 than take the ordinary views of birds nesting, birds 

 flying and so on. If you can select a single nest, 

 or group, and make a continuous study of it, fol- 

 lowing every move of the birds, as you did with the 

 Thrush family, it would make a very valuable rec- 

 ord. A really first-class series of photographs is 

 a gift to science, as deathless as a book. Only — 



