IN PAIRING TIME 139 



contemporaneous and equally keen contests of the 

 Redbreasts. Your Robin is a bold rapiersman, but 

 a courtier to boot. He will not muddle issues with 

 his opponent. One bird never interrupts another 

 in song. He delivers his fine glancing stroke of 

 melody, then stands to receive the full counterstroke 

 of his antagonist. He will have clear hitting on 

 both sides, and no vulgar rattling of steel. But 

 your Chaffinch is a swashbuckler; he smites with 

 smashing fury, all but thrusting and parrying at 

 once. Barely have the first two notes of the song 

 of a Chaffinch sounded when his opponent crashes 

 in upon it with his own; so that, for two songs, there 

 is a double song, and none, ending in the successive 

 " It-schiuT of each, like a double sneeze from both. 

 Yet is he a fine fellow, this Chaffinch a gay 

 cavalier, with his ruddy doublet and varicoloured cape 

 slashed on the sleeves with white. But fine clothes 

 and a lordly air make an unimaginative wooing ; 

 it is only your squat Snipe, with his round shoulders 

 and meditative bill, that must get him up into the 

 highest, and find for himself the soul of an artist in 

 the sky. And so the courting of the Chaffinch is 

 not a very significant affair. Generally it takes 

 place upon the ground, often on a road, both birds 

 maintaining a ceaseless twittering, and the male bird 

 flying repeatedly a few feet ahead, to be followed by 

 the female, eager to entrust her affections to so well 

 dressed a gentleman. Still, I am bound to state 

 that, being married, Chaffinches make the best of 

 parents, the cock being as attentive to the young 

 ones as a mother, and the mother herself foraging 

 with the energy of a cock. 



