CHAPTER XIX. 



MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE. 



IN reading books of Natural History we meet with 

 numerous instances of birds possessing the habit of 

 assembling together, in many cases always at the 

 same spot, to indulge in antics and dancing per- 

 formances, with or without the accompaniment of 

 music, vocal or instrumental; and by instrumental 

 music is here meant all sounds other than vocal 

 made habitually and during the more or less orderly 

 performances ; as, for instance, drumming and 

 tapping noises ; smiting of wings ; and humming, 

 whip -cracking, fan- shutting, grinding, scraping, and 

 horn-blowing sounds, produced as a rule by the 

 quills. 



There are human dances, in which only one 

 person performs at a time, the rest of the company 

 looking on ; and some birds, in widely separated 

 genera, have dances of this kind. A striking 

 example is the Rupicola, or cock-of-the-rock, of 

 tropical South America. A mossy level spot of 

 earth surrounded by bushes is selected for a dancing- 

 place, and kept well cleared of sticks and stones ; 

 round this area the birds assemble, when a cock- 

 bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, 

 steps into it, and, with spreading wings and tail, 



