LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS. 267 



love by dancing. They, too, act contrary to all their usual habits 

 during the dance, and fall finally into a transport which makes them 

 almost forget the outside world. Few birds dance silently, most of 

 them utter peculiar sounds, never heard at other times, at the same 

 time displaying all their adornments, and often bringing the perfor- 

 mance to a close with a sort of round dance. 



Particularly zealous dancers are the scratchers or fowls in the 

 widest acceptation of the term. Our domestic cock contents himself 

 with strutting proudly about, crowing and flapping his wings; his 

 companions in the yard, the peacock and the turkey, do more, 

 for they dance. Much more vigorous dancers than either of these 

 are all the grouse-like birds and some pheasants. Whoever has 

 watched the dance of the capercaillie in the grey morning hours, 

 has listened to the liquid cooing of the black-grouse, has seen the 

 willow-grouse dancing on the snowy plains of the tundra in the 

 dusk of a northern spring, will agree with me that such homage as 

 these cocks offer to the hens must be as irresistible as that paid by 

 our own peacock when he transforms his chief ornament into a 

 canopy for his desired mate. More remarkable than all the rest is 

 the behaviour of the male tragopans or homed pheasants of Southern 

 Asia, magnificently decorative birds, distinguished by two brightly- 

 coloured horn-like tubes of skin on the sides of the head, and by 

 brilliantly-coloured extensible wattles. After the cock has walked 

 round the hen several times without appearing to pay any attention 

 to her, he stands still at a particular spot, and begins to bow. More 

 and more quickly the courtesies follow each other, the horns mean- 

 time swelling and tossing, the wattles dilating and collapsing again, 

 till all are literally flying about the head of the love-crazed bird. 

 Now he unfolds and spreads his wings, rounds and droops his tail, 

 sinks down with bent feet, and, spitting and hissing, lets his wings 

 sweep along the ground. Suddenly every movement ceases. Bent 

 low, his plumage ruffled, his wings and tail pressed against the 

 ground, his eyes closed, his breathing audible, he remains for a 

 while in motionless ecstasy. His fully-unfolded decorations gleam 

 with dazzling brightness. Abruptly he rises again, spits and hisses, 

 trembles, smooths his feathers, scratches, throws up his tail, flaps 



