400 THE THRUSH FAMILY 



where stone walls divide fields ; they will also disappear down short 

 drains, emerge from the other side and flit away. 



Their love antics are incomprehensible! At that particular 

 season of the year when most birds run riot, the wheatear seems 

 positively drunk with the joy of life. He hurls himself into the air, 

 apparently turns a somersault, but in reality does not; dances, 

 rushes at a rival, and occasionally fights, but as often as not, 

 having thrown down the gauntlet, retires from the fray. I recently 

 watched two males rivals for the heart of a female who was 

 discreetly flitting about, awaiting the result. They made little short 

 rushes at each other, but did not actually come to blows. One 

 bird continually flung himself into the air and sang gaily, then 

 descended with curved tail like a tree-pipit; but the other 

 hopped round and round the hen, bowing low, and gesticulating, 

 as much as to say, "See, madam, in me you behold the finished 

 gentleman; yonder fellow is but a strolling musician, I am a man 

 of parts." This one eventually went off with the lady, whilst the 

 rejected singer retired still singing, with an air of 



" If she be not fair for me 

 What care I how fair she be." 



Maybe he had his art to console him ; besides were there not 

 others as fair, to be wooed and won ? A carrion-crow came flapping 

 slowly above him, darkening the sky with sinister omen. The 

 wheatear was not so deeply wounded in his affections as to court 

 death, but hid for a time in a thick thorn bush. That danger past, out 

 he came again and began to pour forth his joyous little song so 

 much fuller and sweeter than that of the Chat's, and resembling a 

 skylark's in its beginnings. The pair of lovers reappeared shortly, 

 and the rejected one again thought to impress the lady with his 

 vocal prowess, but as she continued deaf, finally took himself right 

 away over the edge of the hill. 



The next day, April 11, 1 watched another pair, but they had evi- 



