CHAPTER XIX. 
MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE. 
Tn reading books of Natural History we meet with 
numerous instances of birds posses sing the habit of 
assembling together, in many cases always at the 
same spot, to indulge in antics and dancing per- 
formances, with or without the accompaniment of 
music, vocal or instrumental; and by instrumental 
music is here meant all sounds other than vocal 
made habitually and during the more or less orderly 
performances; as, for instance, drumming and 
tapping noises; smiting of wings ; and humming, 
whip-cracking, fan-shutting, grinding, scraping, and 
horn-blowing sounds, produced as a rule by the 
quills. 
There are human dances, in which only one 
person performs ata time, the rest of the company 
looking on; and seme birds, in widely separated 
genera, have dances of this kind. A_ striking 
example is the Rupicola, or cock-of-the-rock, of 
tropical South America. A mossy level spot of 
earth surrounded by bushes is selected for a dancing- 
place, and kept well cleared of sticks and stones ; 
round this area the birds assemble, when a cock- 
bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, 
steps into it, and, with spreading wings and tail, 
