5066 THE ZOOLOGIST—SEPTEMBER, 1876. 
“These tattlers indulge on all occasions a propensity for nodding, like 
Lord Burleigh or the Chinese mandarins in front of tea-shops; and when 
they see something they cannot quite make out, seem to reason with them- 
selves, and finally come to a conclusion in this way ; impressing themselves 
heavily with a sense of their own logic. They go through the bowing exer- 
cise with a gravity that may quite upset that of a disinterested spectator, 
and yet all through the performance, so ludicrous in itself, contrive to 
preserve something of the passive sedateness that marks all their movements. 
This bobbing of the head and fore parts is the correspondent and counter- 
part of the still more curious actions of the spotted tattlers, or ‘ tip-ups,’ as 
they are aptly called, from this circumstance ; a queer balancing of the body 
upon the legs, constituting an amusement of which these last-named birds 
are extremely fond. As often as the tip-up, or ‘teeter-tail,’ as it is also 
called, stops in its pursuit of insects, the fore-part of the body is lowered 
a little, the head drawn in, the legs slightly bent, whilst the hinder parts 
and tail are alternately hoisted with a peculiar jerk, and drawn down again, 
with the regularity of clockwork. The movement is more conspicuous 
in the upward than in the downward part of the performance; as if the 
tail were spring-hinged, in constant danger of flying-up, and needing con- 
stant presence of mind to keep it down. It is amusing to see an old male 
in the breeding-season busy with this operation. Upon some rock jutting 
out of the water he stands, swelling with amorous pride and self-sufficiency, 
puffing out his plumage till he looks twice as big as natural, facing about 
on his narrow pedestal, and bowing with his hinder parts to all points of 
the compass. A sensitive and fastidious person might see something deri- 
sive, if not actually insulting in this, and feel as Crusoe may be presumed 
to have felt when the savages who attacked his ship in canoes showed the 
signs of contumacious scorn that De Foe records. But it would not be 
worth while to feel offended, since this is only the entirely original and 
peculiar way the tip-up has of conducting his courtships. Ornithologists 
are not agreed upon the useful purpose subserved in this way, and have as 
yet failed to account for the extraordinary performance. The solitary 
tattlers, that we have lost sight of for a moment, are fond of standing 
motionless in the water when they have satisfied their hunger, or of wading 
about up to their bellies with slow, measured steps. If startled at such 
times, they rise lazily and lightly on wing, fly rather slowly a little distance, 
with dangling legs and outstretched neck, to soon re-alight and look about 
with a dazed expression. Just as their feet touch the ground, the long, 
pointed wings are lifted, till their tips nearly meet above, and are then 
deliberately folded. ‘The Esquimaux curlews and some other birds have 
the same habit. The tattlers are unusually silent birds; but when sud- 
denly alarmed they utter a low and rather pleasing whistle as they fly off, 
or even without moving.” 
