200 VIRGINIA 



being at once apparent), and he spinning 

 round like a dervish, almost as if standing 

 on iis head (it was a wonder how he did it), 

 all the while emitting that quick throbbing 

 whistle. His mate (that was, or was to be) 

 maintained an air of perfect indifference, 

 maidenly reserve it might have been called, 

 for aught I know, by a spectator possessed 

 of a charitable imagination, as female 

 birds generally do in such cases ; unless, as 

 often happens, they repel their adorers with 

 beak and claw. I have seen courtships that 

 looked more ridiculous, because more human- 

 like, the flicker's, for example, but never 

 a crazier one, or one less describable. In 

 the language of the boards, it was a star 

 performance. 



The same birds amused me at another 

 time by their senseless conduct in the stony 

 margins of the creek, where they had taken 

 refuge when I pressed them too nearly. 

 There they squatted close among the pebbles, 

 as other plovers do, till it was all but im- 

 possible to tell feather from stone, though I 

 had watched the whole proceeding ; yet while 

 they stood thus motionless and practically 

 invisible (no cinnamon color in sight, now !), 



