46 BIRD WATCHING 



or, as is usual in the contrary, flies away. If she 

 admits them pairing may take place, and at the 

 conclusion of it both birds utter a peculiar, low, deep, 

 and very raucous note which I have heard on this 

 occasion, but on no other." 



If the courting of the female stock-dove by the 

 male whilst on the ground, or amongst the branches 

 of a tree, is of a somewhat heavy nature — more 

 pompous than beautiful — as is, I think, the case, it 

 is lightened in the most graceful manner by the 

 aerial intermezzos — the broidery of the theme — which 

 charmingly relieve and set it off; for often, "after 

 bowing and walking together a little, near, but not 

 touching — a Hermia and Lysander distance — both 

 rise, both mount, attain a height, then pause, and, 

 as from the summit of some lofty precipice, descend 

 on outspread joy-wings in a very music of motion. 

 It is pretty, too, to watch two of them flying together 

 and then alighting, when one instantly bows before 

 the other with empresse mien. Before, you have not 

 known which was which, or who was escorting the 

 other. Now you feel sure that it is he — the empress^, 

 the pompously bowing bird — who has taken her — the 

 retiring, the coy one — for a little fly." For though 

 it is undoubted that the female stock-dove bows to 

 the male, yet, in courting, it is the male, I believe, 

 who commences and carries it to a fine art. 



There are no birds surely — or, at least, not many 

 — who can sport more gracefully in the air than these. 

 " One is sitting and cooing almost in a rabbit-burrow, 

 and so close to a rabbit there that it looks like a little 

 call. Sure enough, too, after a while, the bird, who, 

 of course, is the visitor, rises — but into the air sans 



