EUROPEAN WHEATEAR 291 



hurriedly in the air * * * and sang a few hasty notes * * *; but mostly the pair 

 were quietly feeding or perching upon clods, flirting their tails in their charac- 

 teristic manner, and were by no means loquacious. Presently, however, when 

 the female was at one end of the "trench" and the male some distant, near the other 

 end, the latter turned smartly about and facing his mate, suddenly threw him- 

 self into the air for a few feet with wide-spread wings. Then dropping sharply 

 to the ground he proceeded to perform a kind of almost ihythmic dance, violent 

 sexual emotion thus freeing itself, I suppose; for he leapt from the centre of the 

 shallow trench to the edge of its bank (perhaps six inches) then back to the centre a 

 little further forward (eight or ten inches) then on to the bank again, and so 

 on in rhythmic progression, with the utmost celerity. He thus seemed merely 

 a little whirling mass of fluffed-up feathers and quick-darting legs, till reaching 

 his mate, who was watching (and possibly admiring) him from her end of the 

 trench he cast himself flat before her, lying taut, with head to earth and wings and 

 tail widely outspread. In this wise he certainly displayed very effectively a 

 great part of his plumage to his demure and sober-coloured mate, the sun glinting 

 on the fresh blue-grey of his back, and the wide-spread wings throwing into 

 clear relief the vividly contrasted whiteness of his rump and the fine markings 

 and lines of his head and chin. I could see his form quivering with excitement 

 while he lay thus prone for a few seconds. * * * Then, rising, he flew quietly off 

 accompanied by his mate, and they resumed feeding a few yards away. 



This observation was made on May 5, 1924, near Tring, England. 

 That the utilization of a depression for the purpose of dancing to and 

 fro across it was not merely an individual trick is shown by the 

 curiously similar account given by the well-known observer Edmund 

 Selous (1901). He describes in detail the behavior of two male 

 wheatears on March 30, when a female was in the vicinity, and re- 

 peatedly observed a frenzied dancing display, much as Lloyd describes, 

 the performer generally selecting some depression in the ground in order 

 to dart to and fro across it in a state of the greatest excitement. 



Finishing here, he runs a little way to another such depression, enters it, and 

 coming out again, acts in precisely the same way, making the same little rapidly 

 moving arch of two black up-and-down pointed wings, moving now this way, 

 now that, now forwards, now backwards, from edge to edge of the trough, perching 

 each time on each edge of it, but so quickly, it seems rather to be on the points of 

 the wings than the feet that he comes down. Wings are all one sees; they whirl 

 forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, making a little arch or bridge, 

 the highest point of which, in the centre — which is the point of the upper wing — 

 is some two feet from the floor of the trough, whilst the point of the lower one 

 almost touches it. 



After a time the performance would cease, to be resumed by one 

 or other after an interval during which both hopped about together 

 on the turf. During the display the non-performing bird appeared 

 to show little interest, but sometimes after it they would dart at one 

 another as if to attack, only to separate when almost in the act of 

 closing. Once a variant of the dance was observed: "He now hardly 

 rises from the ground, over which he now seems more to spin in a 

 strange sort of way than to fly — to buzz, as it were — in a confined 



