200 VIRGINIA 



being at once apparent), and he spinning 

 round like a dervish, almost as if standing 

 on his head (it was a wonder how he did it), 

 all the while emitting that quick throbbing 

 whistle. His mate (that was, or was to be) 

 maintained an air of perfect indifference, — 

 maidenly reserve it might have been called, 

 for aught I know, by a spectator possessed 

 of a charitable imagination, — as female 

 birds generally do in such cases ; unless, as 

 often happens, they repel their adorers with 

 beak and claw. I have seen courtships that 

 looked more ridiculous, because more human- 

 like, — the flicker's, for example, — but never 

 a crazier one, or one less describable. In 

 the language of the boards, it was a star 

 performance. 



The same birds amused me at another 

 time by their senseless conduct in the stony 

 margins of the creek, where they had taken 

 refuge when I pressed them too nearly. 

 There they squatted close among the pebbles, 

 as other plovers do, till it was all but im- 

 possible to tell feather from stone, though I 

 had watched the whole proceeding ; yet while 

 they stood thus motionless and practically 

 invisible (no cinnamon color in sight, now !), 



