FUNNY FIGHTERS 227 



seemed to lock beaks gently, as though by a mutual 

 intention to do so, and, indeed, so markedly was this 

 the case that, for a moment, I thought I must have 

 been mistaken, and that, instead of two males, they 

 were male and female. Then, the instant they had 

 interlocked them, they set to pulling, with a sud- 

 den violence, as though the real serious business 

 had now commenced. They pulled, tugged, and 

 struggled most mightily, and each bird was, several 

 times, half pulled and half thrown over the other's 

 back, springing up into the air, at the same time, 

 but neither letting go, nor being let go of. There 

 was a good bout of this before they became 

 separated, after which some fierce pecks were 

 delivered. 



As with some other actions, performed by various 

 birds, when fighting, so, here, with these woodpeckers, 

 I believe that the locking of the bills has been such 

 a constant result of the necessities of the case, that 

 it has now passed, or is passing, into a formal thing, 

 without which the duel could hardly be fought. 

 The birds lock them — so it seems to me — almost 

 as we put on boxing-gloves, or take the foils, and, 

 after this, tug and pull, not so much with the object 

 of getting free, as because this has become their idea 

 of fighting. The fight, in fact, must proceed in a 

 formal routine, and without this, either combatant 

 is at a loss. How else is it that neither bird seems 

 able to begin the fight unless the other fronts him, 

 nor to take — as I have noticed in other cases — an 

 advantage of his adversary, by springing upon him, 

 unawares.?^ In the first combat, for instance, the 

 one bird fed quietly, whilst the other moved his 



