co^jrtship of the eedshank 649 



3. The Courtship proper. 



I will begin with an account of the typical course of the 

 courtship and pairing, such as I have seen repeated, with but 

 slight variations, a considerable number of times. 



Among the forty or fifty birds that usually would be quietly 

 feeding on the flats, walking or running in short starts from 

 mouthfvd to mouthful, a disturbance would every now and then 

 be visible — ;two birds running, one pursuing the other. These 

 two are cock and hen. A cock takes a fancy to one of the 

 hens, leaves his feeding, and starts running towards her. She at 

 once runs away from him, and there ensues a regular game of 

 follow-my-leader. The hen never goes far in a straight line ; 

 she usually runs in a series of curves, often doubling sharply 

 back, and sometimes describing a complete circle or even a figure 

 of eight. Where she goes the cock goes after her, following 

 exactly, but some yards behind. The couple would be ridieulous 

 enough in their devious course, with heads somewhat down and 

 quick-moving legs — rather the action of a fast-trotting horse — 

 but the attitude of the cock adds to the eifect ; his eyes being set 

 on the sides of his head, his neck has to be stretched stiff out and 

 markedly sideways (at an angle of at least twenty degrees with the 

 line of his body), in order to keep the hen in sight. In addition 

 he spreads his pure white tail, so that you see half the fan of it on 

 either side of the tips of the folded wings ; but whether the hen 

 so far ahead can see anything of this I do not know. 



This pursuit goes on often for quite a long time, the birds 

 covering maybe a quarter of a mile. The hen usually flies away, 

 leaving the cock disconsolate, but sometimes she will consent to 

 inaugurate the second stage of the courtship, in which she is 

 able to inspect the suitor more closely. This she does by suddenly 

 coming to a dead stop. The cock then perhaps runs a yard or 

 two further, but soon he too stops, and begins his part of the 

 second stage of the courtship. 



The first stage was almost mere pursuit : the second is pure 

 display. He first unfolds his wings and raises them right above 

 his back, so as to expose their conspicuous under-surface of pure 

 white somewhat clouded or barred with grey. Then, fluttering 

 them tremulously, but keeping them raised all the time, he 

 advances very, very slowly towards the hen, lifting his feet high 

 in the air, and often putting them down scarcely in advance of 

 where they were before. To the human eye the whole action 

 seems the expression of eager excitement tempered by uncer- 

 tainty, and that, presumably, is what the bird is actually feeling. 

 Meanwhile, as he steps on, he stretches his neck a little forwai-d, 

 opens his mouth, and gives utterance to a single continuous note, 

 which is changed into a long roll or rattle by the quick vibration 

 of the lower mandible. The sound is quite like that of a Night- 

 jar, but higher, and without any of the little breaks in the pitch 

 of the note. So he advances closer and closer, the hen usually 

 Proc. Zool. Soc— 1912, No. XLIIL 43 



