PEEWITS AND NEST 



CHAPTER VII 



PEEWITS, besides those aerial antics which are of 

 love, or appertaining to love, have some other and 

 very strange ones, of the same nature, which they go 

 through with on the ground. A bird, indulging in 

 these, presses his breast upon the ground, and uses it 

 as a pivot upon which he sways or rolls, more or less 

 violently, from side to side. The legs, during this 

 process, are hardly to be seen, but must, I suppose, 

 support the body, which is inclined sharply upwards 

 from the breast. The wings project like two horns 

 on either side of the tail, which is bent down 

 between them, in a nervous, virile manner. All at 

 once, a spasm or wave of energy seems to pass 

 through the bird, the tail is bent, still more forcibly, 

 down, the body and wings remaining as before ; and, 



with some most energetic waggles of it, from side to 



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