173



egg. Some of the eggs have darker and more decidedly brown

spots than the others.


The female did all the work of nest-making, incubating,

and feeding and attending upon the young. More than once the

male savagely attacked the young birds; and I cannot place to

his credit a single certain instance of his having fed them.

During the whole of the spring and nesting-season, he had been

my great delight ; and I am grievously disappointed that he

should have turned out to be such a selfish character. From

early morn till late in the evening he used to sing and posture

incessantly : it was one continuous, never-ending warble. The

song was neither powerful nor beautiful, but it was very varied

and highly pleasing. So long as the growth of grass and wheat

was sufficiently short to allow him to keep to the ground, he was

perpetually on the trot with a cocked-up tail. Should he chance

to meet his mate, he instantly commenced to dance and caper.

He had a true love dance ; and with high arched neck would

prance and skip right merrily. Before the eggs were hatched,

however, he was driven off the ground, and thenceforth spent

most of his time on the roof of a shed, slightly under four feet

high and overlooking the second nest. Here he went on with

his warbling, the tail jerking up and down with the stiffness of

a wooden toy, and here also he would dance if joined by the

female even for a moment. For a while I could not understand

some of their courting postures, until I found that they copulated

in the air. Perhaps this is not uncommon with Larks, but I do

not know. It came as a surprise to me. When the female was

not very amiable, he would charge at her again and again until

he forced her into flight. When she became more affectionate,

however, it was a pretty sight to watch them. Standing up at

his full height, some two feet from her, with wings and tail

spread out to their full extent, with quivering, shimmering wings

he would slowly approach her. If very loveable, she would rise

and meet him likewise with outspread wings. The male Black

Lark evidently glories in his black, as the courting Golden¬

winged Woodpecker glories in his golden, underparts, for not

only did he disport himself as described when actually with the

female on the shed, but, from the nearest edge of the shed, he

would stand over her, as it were, with outstretched quivering

wings, while she was sitting on her second nest.


So long as the Rock-Thrushes were in the aviary, the male

clearly understood that he had a duty to perform, and regularly

patrolled in the front, charging furiously at every bird that came

to the ground, including the male Rock-Thrush. When the



