42 BIRD WATCHING 



witnessed. It would appear, therefore, that the curious 

 flights of two birds up into the air, the one of them 

 exactly over, and almost touching, the other — wherein, 

 as I have noted, there is frequently a blow with the 

 wings which, to judge by the sound reaching me from 

 a considerable distance, must be sometimes a severe 

 one — are the aerial continuations of combats com- 

 menced on the ground." Sometimes, that is to say. 

 There seems no reason why birds accustomed thus 

 to contend, should not sometimes do so ab itti/io, and 

 without any preliminary encounter on mother earth — 

 and this, I believe, is the case. 



Here, then, in the stock-dove we have at the 

 nuptial season a kind of flight which seems certainly 

 to be of the nature of a combat, very much resembling 

 that of the peewit at the same season. I have seen 

 peewits fighting on the ground, and once they were 

 for a moment in the air together at a foot or two 

 above it, and the one a little above the other. This, 

 however, may have been mere chance, and I have 

 not seen the one form of combat arise unmistakably 

 out of the other, as in the case of the stock-doves. 

 But assuming that in each case there is a combat, 

 is it certain that the contending birds are always, 

 or generally, two males, and not male and female? 

 It certainly seems natural to suppose this, but with 

 the stock-dove, at any rate (and I believe with pigeons 

 generally), the two sexes sometimes fight sharply ; 

 and, moreover, the female stock-dove bows to the 

 male, as well as the male to the female, both which 

 points will be brought out in the following in- 

 stances : — 



" A hen bird is sitting alone on the sand, a male 



