XI COLOUR AND SONG 309 



Birds are equally wonderful. A number of these 

 combine to erect a bower, which they decorate with 

 shells, feathers, and anything that commends itself 

 as ornamental, the cock-birds doing most of, but 

 not all, the work. In these bowers go on antics of a 

 much more gentle and sedate kind than those just 

 .described. It is much to be regretted that the Bower 

 Birds at the Zoological Gardens seem recently to have 

 had no spirit for architecture or for elaborate sports. 

 Among our English birds, as I have said, antics on a 

 grand scale are unknown, perhaps because they have 

 a richness and variety of song sufficient to express any 



Fig. 74. — Snipe's outer tail-feather (after Darwin). 



emotion. But we have occasional instances of instru- 

 mental music in our domestic and wild birds. The 

 Peacock rattles his quills. The "drumming" noise 

 made by the Snipe, as he descends with wild speed 

 from the sky, is now known to be caused partly by 

 the curiously curved outer tail-feathers. If one of 

 these is held in the hand and waved rapidly through 

 the air, the "drumming" is actually heard. The 

 wings probably assist. 1 



Fighting is very often combined with antics, notably 

 by the Blackcock and Capercailzie. 



In some cases the fighting itself seems merely to be 

 of an antic character, the males sparring with little 

 1 See Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. ii., p. 64. 



