STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 51 



in the most graceful manner, alighting on the same 

 branch beside the waiting partner. This is a beautiful 

 thing to see, and especially in the early fresh morning 

 of a clear, lovely day. It seems then as if the bird 

 kept flying up to greet " the early rising sun," or as 

 rejoicing in the beauty of all things. These are the 

 coquetries, the prettinesses of loving couples, as to 

 which — on one side at least — what has not been said 

 by the writers of our clumsy race ! But " if the lions 

 were sculptors " — How might a bird novelist expatiate ! 

 Not less beautiful is the nuptial flight of the wood- 

 pigeon. Of this, the clapping of the wings above the 

 back is the most salient feature, a sound which is 

 never heard during the winter or after the breeding- 

 season is fairly over. "In full flight, the bird smites 

 its wings two or three times smartly together above 

 the back, then, holding them extended and motionless, 

 it seems to pause for one instant — if there can be 

 pause in swiftest motion — before sinking and then 

 rising and sinking again, as does a wave, or as though 

 it rested on an aerial switchback. Then continuing 

 his flight — recommencing, that is to say, the strokes 

 of his wings — he may do the same when he has gone 

 a few air-fields farther, and so " pass in music out of 

 sight." Sometimes there will be only a single clap 

 of the wings instead of two or three,* but always it 

 is made just before the still-spreading of them, and 

 the hanging pause in the air ; for let the speed be 

 never so great — and it hardly seems possible that it 

 could be checked so suddenly, and why should the 

 bird wish to check it? — yet the effect upon the eye 

 of the wings extended and motionless after they have 



* Sometimes, too, not any, the flight being the same. 



