STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 39 



to join them, he circles too, all three are circling, 

 the light glinting on one, falling from another, thrown 

 and caught and thrown again as if they played at 

 ball with light." 



I thought, therefore, that birds when they flew in 

 pairs like this were disporting themselves together in 

 a nuptial flight, and making — as indeed this, in any 

 case, is true — a very pretty display of it. What was 

 there, indeed — or what did there seem to be — to 

 indicate that angry passions lay at the root of all 

 this loveliness? But I had not taken sufficiently 

 into consideration that sharp clap of the wings indi- 

 cating a blow — a severe one — on the part of one of 

 the birds with a parry on that of the other. This 

 is how stock-doves, as well as other pigeons, fight 

 on the ground, and it is as an outcome and continua- 

 tion of these fierce stand-up combats — which there 

 is no mistaking — that the contending birds rise and 

 hover one over the other, in the manner described. 

 My notes will, I think, show this, as well as the 

 curious and, as it were, formal manner in which 

 the ground-tourney is conducted. 



" Two stock-doves fighting. — This is very interesting 

 and peculiar. They fight with continual blows of the 

 wings, these being used both as sword — or, rather, 

 partisan — and shield. The peculiarity, however, is 

 this, that every now and again there is a pause in the 

 combat, when both birds make the low bow, with tail 

 raised in air, as in courting. Sometimes both will 

 bow together, and, as it would seem, to each other — 

 facing towards each other, at any rate — but at other 

 times they will both stand in a line, and bow, so that 

 one bows only to the tail of the other, who bows to 



