2 82 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



up, in bold contrast with all the rest of them, so 

 that, with the white feathers which this part bears, 

 and which are now finely displayed, they have a 

 most striking and handsome appearance. There is 

 a little bunch of these feathers — the under tail- 

 coverts — on either side of the true tail, and each of 

 these is frilled and expanded outwards, to the utmost 

 possible extent, which gives it the shape and appear- 

 ance of one half, or almost half, of a palm-leaf 

 fan. The tail is the whole fan, so that, what with 

 its size, and the graceful form that it has now 

 assumed, and the pure white contrasting with the 

 rich brown in the centre, it has become quite beau- 

 tiful, more so, I think, than the fan of any fan-tail 

 pigeon. Indeed the whole bird seems to be dif- 

 ferent, and looks more than twice as handsome as 

 it does under ordinary circumstances. Its spirit, 

 which is now exalted and warlike, " shines through " 

 it, and, with its rich crimson bill, it glows and 

 burns on the water, like Cleopatra's barge. A 

 fierce and fiery little prow this bill makes, indeed, 

 and there is the poop, too, for the elevated tail, 

 with the part of the body adjoining, which has, also, 

 a bold upward curve, has very much that appear- 

 ance. Thus, in this most salient of attitudes, with 

 tail erect, and with beak and throat laid, equally 

 with the whole body, along the water, with proud 

 and swelling port the birds make little impetuous 

 rushes at one another, driving, each, their little 

 ripple before them, from the vermilion prow-point. 

 They circle one about another, approach and then 

 glide away again, looking, for all the world, like two 

 miniature war-ships of proud opposing nations : for 



