204 What Birds Have Done With Me 



go fishing the next day, but that chub fishing I 

 have gone back to oftener in memory than any 

 other fishing I ever did, and still rank it as a 

 great event in my life. The mystery that I had 

 pursued so long and so far, suddenly staged itself 

 along the inner edge of the mud-flat, under the 

 outer shadow of great trees and just at the point 

 where twilight and night blended and became 

 one. I thought them snipe and had seen them 

 across the river pursuing each other while I fought 

 mosquitoes and caught bait. I was sole audience, 

 sole press reporter, at a Woodcocks' Gretna 

 Green without knowing how privileged a charac- 

 ter I was. It was as novel a kind of "Seven Up" 

 as any that could have been played out for Alice 

 when seeing things in Fairyland. Why seven up ? 

 For the very excellent reason that going and com- 

 ing, there were just that number at one time in 

 the air. What an astounding mode of courtship 

 an aerial dance. The male bird doing all the 

 dancing; making unearthly booming sounds and 

 spinning around in the air as he climbs invisible 

 stairways till he hears the angels sing, then the 

 return trip, falling at her feet, but quite done up 

 till the next time. 



It's not only mysterious, it's inexplicable, but 

 it does the trick and is presumably the surest way 

 to ensnare the affection of Miss Henrietta Wood- 

 cock. This is billing and cooing with a long dash 



