OYSTERCATCHER OR SEAPIE 397 



may, in the pairing season, see three birds of a species flying together 

 in apparent friendliness. 1 This, too, at a tune when sexual feelings 

 should run so high as to make impossible any but furiously hostile 

 relations between males when a female is present, and the sporting 

 trios generally appear to be made up of two males and a female. I 

 have frequently noticed these friendly flights of trios in several species 

 of Waders, the lapwing, most commonly (see ante, page 379), but also 

 snipe, redshank, ringed-plover, and curlew. All these species live 

 more or less gregariously immediately prior to the pairing season, and 

 as the amicable association of three birds is most noticeable in the 

 beginning of the pairing season, an obvious inference is that sexual 

 feelings are hardly yet dominant over those that rule during the soci- 

 able period. In the instance of the oystercatcher, the " association of 

 three " was observed at the end of the nesting season, the lack of male 

 combativeness during the performance of a sexual display presumably 

 indicating the waning of sexual activity. The probability is that the 

 display outlives the feelings that give rise to it. It is not by any 

 means rare to see birds performing their courting antics at times when 

 these can no longer be influenced by the same feelings, or have the 

 same significance, as in the spring. All of which is strongly in favour 

 of Mr. Selous' theory that social ceremonial displays have been evolved 

 from sexual ones. 



To return to the oystercatchers and their July piping parties. The 

 piping of the males depends on the presence of the female. It begins 

 by a male piping before a female. Another male in the neighbour- 

 hood hears the note, becomes interested, pipes a little, and then flies 

 direct to where the performance is taking place. He places himself 

 by the side of the other male, and the two pipe together to the female. 

 Generally unresponsive, the female may walk away, when she is 

 followed by the two males, who continue their serenade. In one 

 instance observed by Mr. Selous, the female flew down to a lower 

 shelf of rock, and the two males piped down to her from above, and 



1 Bird Watching, p. 85. 



