WHEATEARS, DABCHICKS 95 



of a quite formal and non-courting nature, and, though 

 I will not here try to indicate the steps by which the 

 female bird might gradually enter into the dance- 

 movements or the song, they do not seem to me 

 impossible to conceive of. The number of per- 

 formers, however, having once become fixed, would 

 be likely to continue, through habit, as long as no 

 other influence arose to affect it. 



The fact that it was in the early days of July, when 

 the true courting-season should have been over, that 

 I witnessed these movements, may perhaps strengthen 

 the above view. 



In seeking to explain such performances as those 

 of the spur-winged lapwing in this latter way, one 

 must assume the number of three birds to have 

 originated in accordance with general principles, and 

 that first there has been a real courtship of the female 

 bird by two males, the antics proper to which have, 

 at last, become stereotyped into a formal dance or 

 display. This, however, would not exclude the pos- 

 sibility of what I have suggested in the case of the 

 dabchicks and common peewit, and I believe myself 

 that it is not by one only, but by many causes, that 

 the many curious antics of birds are to be explained. 



