﻿i92 Bird -Lore 



seemed to be no favorite spot for the dance, as it apparently took place 

 wherever the two birds happened to meet, which was most frequently on 

 the front lawn. Roger appeared to be ready for a dance always, and as soon 

 as lady White Wings would fly over the fence, and light on the ground, 

 he would very soon be seen to join her, and taking a position in front of 

 her, about three feet away, the two would instantly stretch their little bodies 

 and necks to their greatest length, and with heads well thrown up, tails 

 uplifted and wings drooping, they would stand perfectly still a second or two 

 and admire each other. Then the dance would begin — and this consisted 

 of the two hopping sideways in the same direction and in a rather straight 

 line, a few inches at a time, always keeping directly opposite each other, 

 and about the same distance apart. They would chassez this way four or five 

 feet, then go back over the same line in the same manner. Often this 

 chassez would be repeated five or six times, the birds always keeping in the 

 same erect position. Once, I saw the female dart off to catch a particularly 

 tempting miller, and swallow it as she hurriedly returned to her position in 

 the dance. Roger, in the meantime, had stood perfectly rigid. One morn- 

 ing I happened to discover these two birds dancing on one of our verandas, 

 and near the steps where there was a thick door-mat. In some way, Roger 

 got on a line with the mat, and this he did not like, for, on his return, he 

 hopped back a little to avoid it. This brought him up against the rocker of 

 a settee at the other end of the chassez, but, instead of going back from this, 

 as he had gone from the mat, he flew up on the seat of the settee, and was 

 continuing the dance there, when White Wings flew away — evidently 

 disgusted with such unusual performances of her partner. I was within a 

 few feet of these birds at the time — just back of a screen door — and could 

 see every turn of their eyes, and hear the scratching of their toe-nails as 

 they hopped. Beyond this little noise of the feet, not a sound was to be 

 heard. When the nesting season came, and these birds left us, the grounds 

 seemed very lonely, and I was exceedingly glad then that I had persevered 

 and finally succeeded in getting a few photographs of my favorite bird — Sir 

 Roger de Coverley. 



