CHAPTER III 



Watching 



Stock^doves 

 Wood'pigeons 

 Snipe, etc, 



1 HAVE alluded to the aerial combats of the stock- 

 dove during the nuptial season as elucidating similar 

 movements on the part of the peewit, though I was 

 not able so fully to satisfy myself as to the meaning 

 of these in the latter bird. The fighting of birds on 

 the wing has sometimes — to my eye, at least — a very 

 soft and delicate appearance, which does not so much 

 resemble fighting as sport and dalliance between the 

 sexes. Larks, for instance, have what seem, at the 

 worst, to be delicate little mock-combats in the air, 

 carried on in a way which suggests this. Sometimes, 

 rising together, they keep approaching and retiring 

 from each other with the light, swinging motion of a 

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