344 



WILD SPAIN. 



The males have now acquired the banded throats, and 

 indulge in love-antics, much after the fashion of the 

 blackcock. Far away on the prairie one's eye catches 

 something white, which disappears and again appears. 

 On focussing the field-glass upon the distant object it is 

 seen to be a male Sison, which, with drooping wings and 

 expanded tail, slowly revolves on his axis. Now he rises 

 to full height, displaying all the white on his plumage; 

 anon his breast seems depressed to earth, and all the 

 while a strange bubbling note is uttered, monosyllabic, 

 but repeated in rapid spondees.* 



In vain one scans the surrounding ground to catch a 

 glimpse of the female ; she remains crouched among the 

 scant growth of palmetto, or rough herbage, invisible : 

 yet, we may presume, admiring the " play " of her lord. 



Not yet have the sentiments of love overmastered those of 

 self-preservation : hence an attempt to gain closer quarters 

 will be unsuccessful, the male bird rising on clattering 

 wing at three gunshots, his partner following soon after. 

 He has not yet, moreover, attained the fullest beauty of 

 his nuptial plumage. By the middle of May his banded 

 throat, with its double gorget of black and white, has 

 become distended like a jargonelle pear, the rich glossy- 

 black plumes at the back long and hackle-like. At this 

 period — end of May — the males may be secured by careful 

 approach under the stalking-horse. And now the females, 

 already beginning to lay, become, of course, tame enough. 



The four olive-green eggs are deposited among the 

 herbage at the end of May — four is the number we have 

 seen in the few nests discovered — and a second clutch 

 is, according to Mr. Saunders (who, we have found by ex- 

 perience, makes no statement unless he has good grounds 

 for it), frequently laid in the latter part of July. The 

 males, all through the tedious business of -incubation, 



* Col. Irby gives this love-note as "prut, prut." Mr. Howard 

 Saunders describes the rising and falling movement as more of a 

 jump, which may very likely be a more correct definition; or, 

 perhaps, both actions are executed. At the distance at which observa- 

 tions are possible, it is difficult to be quite certain what one sees. 



