50 BIRD WATCHING 



series of quick little bows, or, rather bobs, which he 

 makes to his fiancee instead of one or more slower 

 and much more imposing ones. Essentially, however, 

 it is the same thing. The pace has been quickened 

 and the interval lessened, whilst, to allow of the 

 increased speed, the bow itself has been shorn of 

 much of its pomp and circumstance, so that it has 

 become, as I say, a mere bob. The turtle-dove may 

 perform some half-dozen or more of these bobs, taking 

 less time, perhaps, to get through them than do his 

 larger relatives to achieve one of their solemn and 

 formal bows. Still he is pompous too, he bends down 

 low at the shrine, and though each little bob may 

 not be much in itself, yet, when thus strung together, 

 the display as a whole is equal to the other two. 



All the time he is thus bowing or bobbing the 

 turtle-dove utters a deep, rolling, musical note which 

 is continuous (or sounds so), and does not cease till 

 he has got back into his more everyday attitude. 

 The hen looks sometimes surprised, sometimes as 

 though she had expected it, and sometimes, I think, 

 — but of this I am not quite positive — she will 

 return the little series of musical bobs. This is in 

 tree -land; but I have seen the turtle-dove court 

 on the ground, and he then, between his bobbings, 

 made a curious dancing step towards the female, who 

 retired and gave her final answer by flying away. 

 But, besides this, these birds have another and most 

 charming nuptial disportment. Sitting a deux in 

 some high tree, one of them will every now and again 

 fly out of it, mount upwards, make one or two circling 

 sweeps around and above it, then, after remaining 

 poised for some seconds, descend on spread wings 



