PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 128 
as he ceased, and held his head back to listen, 
the other’ answered him; and so the dialogue 
went on. Evidently, they were already mated, 
and were now renewing their mutual vows; 
for birds, to their praise be it spoken, believe 
in courtship after marriage. The day happened 
to be Sunday, and it did occur to me that pos- 
sibly this was the woodpeckers’ ritual, —a kind 
of High Church service, with antiphonal choirs. 
But I dismissed the thought ; for, on the whole, 
the shouting seems more likely to be diagnos- 
tic, and in spite of his gold-lined wings, I have 
set the flicker down as almost certainly an old- 
fashioned Methodist. 
Speaking of courtship after marriage, I am 
reminded of a spotted sandpiper, whose capers 
I amused myself with watching, one day last 
June, on the shore of Saco Lake. As I caught 
sight of him, he was straightening himself up, 
with a pretty, self-conscious air, at the same 
time spreading his white-edged tail, and calling, 
Tweet, tweet, tweet.1 Afterwards he got upon 
a log, where, with head erect and wings thrown 
forward and downward, he ran for a yard or 
two, calling as before. This trick seemed es- 
1 May one who knows nothing of philology venture to inquire 
whether the very close agreement of this tweet with our sweet 
(compare also the Anglo-Saxon swete, the Icelandic setr, and the 
Sanskrit svad) does not point toa common origin of the Aryan 
and sandpiper languages ? 
