270 



The Naturalist in La Plata. 



puffed-out plumage and standing exactly abreast, 

 stoop forward and downward until the tips of their 

 beaks touch the ground, and, sinking their rhyth- 

 mical voices to a murmur, remain for some time in 

 this posture. The performance is then over and 

 the visitor goes back to his own ground and mate, 

 to receive a visitor himself later on. 



Dance of Spnr-wiuged Lapwings. 



In the Passerine order, not the least remarkable 

 displays are -witnessed in birds that are not 

 accounted songsters, as they do not possess the 

 highly developed vocal organ confined to the sub- 

 order Oscines. The tyrant-birds, which represent 

 in South America the fly-catchers of the Old World, 

 all have displays of some kind ; in a vast majority 

 of cases these are simply joyous, excited duets 



