The Prairie- Hen 163 



ing females with the idea that each male is a 

 devil of a fellow, and a most desirable parti. 

 The various movements embrace a series of pos- 

 turings varied with abrupt, short rushes this way 

 and that. Every now and then a male lowers his 

 head and expels the air from his sacs, and the 

 booming sound speeds over the great grassy sea, 

 as the voice of white-maned breakers comes from 

 the distant reef. I have lain watching and listen- 

 ing while one hundred or more were thus en- 

 gaged, and the experience was well worth the 

 trouble of beating the sun across the grass. The 

 grand concert is always about sunrise, but scat- 

 tered birds may be heard at any time during the 

 day. 



The big musterings are continued each morn- 

 ing for about a week, and toward the end the man 

 with the glass may enjoy a surfeit of impromptu 

 fights, for the jealous males mill it right merrily 

 as though they considered their meeting-place an 

 exaggerated cockpit. They fight with feet, wings, 

 and bills ; pecking savagely, hanging on, and leap- 

 ing and striking somewhat after the manner of 

 their remote kin — the wearers of the deadly 

 gaffs. When one feels that he has been suffi- 

 ciently mauled, he " flies the pit," and unless he 

 has luck in running across some lone maid, or 

 some mated male who either is a poor fighter or 

 will submit to a bluff, he wins no mate that sea- 



