THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA. 103 



circle several times over the lake and sink again in detachments. 

 With trilling call the redshanks also rise, and with them the snipe, 

 whose cry, though tuneless, is audible from afar. The robber sweeps 

 past all too near, but both redshank and snipe forget his menace 

 as soon as they reach a safe height; they seem to feel only the 

 golden spring-tide and the joy of love which now dominates them. 

 For the redshank sinks suddenly to the water far beneath, flutters, 

 and hovers with his wings hanging downwards and forwards, rises 

 again with insistent calls and sinks once more, until a response from 

 his mate near by invites him to cease from his love-play and to 

 hasten to her. So is it also with the snipe, who, after he has ended 

 his zigzag flight, and ascended to twice the height of a tower, lets 

 himself fall suddenly. In the precipitous descent he broadens out 

 his tail, and opposes the flexible, narrow, pointed lateral feathers to 

 the resisting air, thus giving rise to that bleating noise to which he 

 owes his quaint name of sky -goat. ^^ Only a pair of the exceedingly 

 long-legged black-winged stilts, which were pursuing their business 

 in apparently aristocratic isolation from the throng, have remained 

 undisturbed by the marsh-harrier; perhaps they saw the bold black- 

 headed gulls hastening to drive ofi" the disturber of the peace. 

 Moreover, a Montagu's harrier and. a steppe-harrier have united 

 their strength against the marsh-harrier, whom they hate with a 

 bitterness proportionate to his near relationship. Without hesita- 

 tion the robber makes for the open country, and next minute there 

 is the wonted whistling and warbling, scolding and cackling over 

 the water. Already there is a fresh arrival of visitors, drawn by 

 that curiosity common to all social birds, and also, of course, by 

 the rich table which these lakes afford. 



When at length we reach the thicket of reeds the smaller birds 

 become more conspicuous, the larger forms being more effectively 

 concealed. The crane, which breeds on the most inaccessible spots, 

 the great white heron, which fishes on the inner margin of the 

 thicket, the spoonbill, which forages for food on the shallowest 

 stretches among the reeds, all these keep themselves as far as 

 possible in concealment, and of the presence of the bittern in the 

 very heart of the reeds we are aware only by his muffled booming. 



