316 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the wing for a second or so before the wings are furled often enables 

 one to identify the species even when the birds themselves are too 

 far off to be recognized otherwise. Mr. Farren (1910) also adds: 



Redshanks are fond of perching, either on horizontal branches of trees, on 

 posts or rails; in the Cambridgeshire fens I have seen them displaying, as 

 described by Stevenson, on the long low stacks of freshly dug peat, and also 

 on the ground. A male may be seen running fussily about in front of the 

 female, vibrating its body and drooping its wings and often uttering a note 

 similar to the trilling song which accompanies the spring soaring flight. 



J. S. Huxley (1912) gives a clearer and more complete picture of 

 the courtship than any previous describe!*. The first stage consists 

 in the pursuit of a hen by a male bird. Directly he stops feeding 

 and runs after her, she runs away. Never in a straight line for any 

 distance, but in a series of curves, often doubling back and sometimes 

 describing a circle or even a figure of eight, while the cock follows her 

 line a few yards behind. The cock's head is held sideways at an 

 angle of quite 20 degrees with the line of his body in order to keep 

 the hen in view, and his neck is stiffly stretched out. His pure white 

 tail is expanded so that half is visible on each side of his folded 

 wings. The chase often lasts for quite a long time, when the hen 

 flies off leaving the male disconsolate, but sometimes she will stop and 

 then the second stage begins. 



The male may run on a yard or two, but soon stops. 



He first unfolds his wings and raises them right above his back so as to 

 expose their conspicuous undersurface of pure white, somewhat clouded or 

 barred with grey. Then fluttering them tremulously but keeping them raised 

 all the time he advances very, very slowly towards the hen, lifting his feet high 

 in the air and often putting them down scarcely in advance of where they 

 were before. Meantime as he steps on he stretches his neck a little forward, 

 t opens his mouth, and gives utterance to a single continuous note, wh ch is 

 changed into a long roll or rattle by the quick vibration of the lower mandible. 

 The sound is quite like that of a nightjar, but higher and without any of the 

 little breaks in the pitch of the note. So he advances closer and closer, the hen 

 usually remaining motionless. Again at any time during this stage she may 

 reject his suit by flying off, but if she is going to accept him, she simply 

 stays still, often without moving a muscle the whole time. As the cock gets 

 closer, he gets more and more exc ted, vibrates his wings more and more 

 rapidly, at length so fast that almost his whole weight is supported by them, 

 though he still continues to execute the high stepping movements with his 

 feet. At last when just behind the hen. he abandons the ground and flutters 

 up on to her back on which he half alights. The period when he is there on 

 her back is the third and last state of the courtship ; it is very short and s of 

 course in a sense nothing more than getting into the proper position for the 

 actual pairing. Sometimes the hen, suddenly repugnant, gives a violent jerk 

 or sideways twist and shakes him forcibly on to the ground, herself runn ng 

 or flying away. Occasionally, however, she apparently is satisfied; she spreads 

 her tail diagonally and the cock with a quick and wonderfully graceful motion, 

 half supported all the time by his fluttering wings, accomplishes the act of 



