THE BUNTINGS 177 



and follow their movements. Finally they re-alight in the same 

 manner, but more gently, and close by the side of the females. 1 Here, 

 then, we seem to have something like true courting actions on the 

 part of the male corn-bunting, and not only so, but a place of assem- 

 blage where they are more especially practised. 



As for the male yellow-hammer, he, too, will raise the feathers of 

 his crest, or rather scalp, and, with wings drooped upon the ground, 

 parade about the female, 2 to whose gaze his most adorned parts 

 being the head, breast, and throat are thus exposed, or rather 

 emphasised, since they are no revelation. The white border-feathers 

 of the tail, however, to some extent, are, and, by the sudden spreading 

 out of the latter, these are frequently flashed into view. 3 Thus, 

 homely as the performance may be said to be the actions at least 

 are not very striking yet the bird shows all that he has to show. 



Of the cirl-bunting's actions in courtship, uncommon as the bird 

 is with us, I can find no account, whilst those of the snow-bunting 

 (P. nivalis) our own, though only just our own seem equally to have 

 escaped observation. The male has, indeed, been seen to mount, 

 larkwise, into the air, and then descend slowly, upon spread wings and 

 in spiral circles, on to some rock, where the song, which he had all the 

 while been trilling, is brought to a conclusion 4 but there is more, I 

 feel certain, than this. The Lapland-bunting (Calcarius lapponicus} does 

 the same thing, 5 and if only because of the brotherhood that exists 

 between these two northern forms since, in all things, they make a 

 pair, in their song, in their call-notes, their flight, gait and strongly- 

 marked plumage, suggesting affinity even when it varies most widely 

 I am convinced that Nivalis has some dance, or other ground evolution, 

 extremely impressive and of more intimately nuptial character. 



1 Bailly, Ornithologie de la Savoie, iii. p. 281. The height to which the males are said to rise 

 is only "quelques decimetres," and as a decimetre is less than the third of a foot, this in itself 

 would seem to give a special and quite uncommon character to the proceedings. This interesting 

 account is evidently from personal observation. 



2 Ussher and Warren, Birds of Ireland. 3 Boraston, Nature Tones and Undertones. 

 * Seebohm, Birds of Siberia. 



6 Wheelwright, A Spring and Summer in Lapland ; Hagerup, Birds of Greenland. 



