132 IN PAIRING TIME 



This exhibition, being quite unlike any I had 

 before witnessed in connection with the Blackbird, 

 must have remained a mystery had not the bird, 

 having reached the top of the bank, swung quickly 

 round and continued his ghibberish until the brown 

 form of a female Blackbird also appeared hopping up 

 the ditch bank. When she had stopped short of the 

 cock, bending forward, all eyes and ears, as it were, 

 for his strange performing, a second female bird 

 followed, and the two continued thus intently to 

 regard the cock, and to disregard one another. 

 When the cock bird, facing the two females, 

 had serenaded them in this fashion for about 

 a minute, he again turned tail upon them, fanning 

 it and trailing it as before, and as he wormed 

 along, they followed him silently, apparently fascinated 

 by his wild skirling. He, stopping abruptly, and 

 with his back still turned toward them, drew himself 

 up, flung the spread tail askew on one side, and 

 jerked his head awry on the other, as if he were 

 stiffly set on a crooked wire. Where now was the 

 shapely Blackbird with his elegant posings and 

 poisings ? The creature seemed so wrought up that 

 he sought to throw himself rigidly into any extrava- 

 gant posture. The stately Merle had become a 

 fantastic contortionist. 



When, later, one of the females espied me, she 

 uttered the usual wild cackle, and the cock took wing 

 into a neighbouring tree, whither he was followed by 

 his admirers. Almost immediately, however, he set 

 off on a long traverse, closely attended by the silent 

 female. The other, following them, again cackled 

 aloud as she passed me, upon which her companions 



