THE REDBREAST 437 



The performers, it is interesting to note, were already paired, 

 and thus provide yet another instance of the fact that love displays 

 are not confined to the period of courtship. 1 



Mr. O. V. Aplin records that he saw the extreme erect posture 

 just described assumed by two rival males in presence of a hen. They 

 were a couple of inches apart and sang " in a shrill constrained tone." 

 That they should have felt constrained is not surprising, for each had 

 good reason to anticipate a sudden cuff on the head from his fellow 

 swain. One finally gave up, and was chased away into the shrubbery. 2 



An unusual attitude struck by a bird may, like its song or any 

 given note it utters, be used to express at different times different 

 emotions. This, I have assured myself, is true of the love postures 

 of the robin. In autumn and winter they serve to express, not love, 

 but enmity and pugnacity. At these seasons I have frequently 

 observed individuals that were approaching each other with hostile 

 intent cock up their tails and erect the neck and head, though not 

 in the extreme form described by Mr. Ogilvie Grant. The attitudes 

 adopted varied much from bird to bird, a fact well illustrated by two 

 who lived in adjoining estates in my garden, and whom I had ample 

 opportunities of watching. One usually kept its body upright, and 

 rarely erected the tail, which was left in its customary position. It 

 was about the head that the excitement felt made itself chiefly 

 apparent. This was thrown back, the beak pointing upward and 

 forward. The throat was puffed out so that each feather stood apart, 

 and the crown raised into a little conical heap. In the moments of 

 crisis, corresponding to that when a human being, having taken off 

 his coat, is on the point of closing with the enemy, this bird would 

 almost invariably and, it seemed to me, quite involuntarily, burst into 

 snatches of song. On one occasion I saw it fan the tail. The other 

 bird usually held the body in a horizontal position and the tail straight 

 up. The whole front part of the body was stretched stiffly forward, 



1 Ibis, 1902, p. 677, which contains an illustration of the gymnastic posture by Mr. G. E. 

 Lodge. 2 Ibis, 1903, p. 133. 



