74 'Journal of Comparative Neurology aud Psychology. 



cycle, the birds always sleep, or rest. The sitting male thus sleeps 

 through the hottest hours. But the first and last hours of his 

 brooding are spent in alert, though quiet, wakefulness. 



When the male is again free from the nest in the evening, he in- 

 dulges in another period of cooing, though a much less noisy period 

 than' that of the morning. When first relieved by the female, having 

 had a long fast, he goes at once to feed ; then he usually performs an 

 elaborate toilet ; and only gradually does he rise to the evening 

 musical performance. This performance, indeed, as has been men; 

 tioned, is much less than that of the moniing: for example, to compare 

 with that morning's performance of July 2d which has already been 

 described, I made a similarly complete observation on an afternoon 

 just four days previous, Avith the result that, during the whole time 

 between leaving the nest and going to roost, i. e. 31/^ hours (as 

 against 41/2 hours for the morning), the male sang only 16 times 

 (as against 95), making 65 coos (as against 487) ; moreover, while 

 70 of the morning's repetitions were accompanied by bowing and 24 

 were of the suppliant type known as the nest-call, the evening per- 

 formance was entirely of that less emotional and less elaborate type 

 known as the perch-coo. The cooing generally reaches a maximum 

 just before the bird goes to roost. After taking the roost, the male 

 usually coos a number of times, but his songs become rapidly less 

 frequent till all is silent. And this silence ensues while daylight 

 is still much brighter than that by which the bird first begins to coo 

 in the morning; which again makes the songster's evening perform- 

 ance inferior to that of the morning. 



C". The Beood Cycle, Continued. 



After the laying of the eggs, pigeons in general spend their days 

 in comparative quiet. This is not always very evident in the common 

 ring-dove, as may be gathered from the foregoing pages ; but in some 

 of the wild species the change is sudden and almost complete. The 

 birds go about with a haunted look, with a perpetual expression of 

 alarm, as it were. The male sings only at sunrise and at sunset, 

 and when singing he goes away from the nest as far as possible. 



