COURTSHIP AND MATING OF BIRDS 147 
Opponent. Jealous bustards, after spending a long time challeng- 
ing each other with throat inflated, wings and tail outspread, 
and much grumbling and hissing, make use of their bills with 
very considerable effect. Sand-pipers and other shore-birds, 
particularly the fighting ruffs, which fight about everything, about 
a mate or about a fly, about sun and light, or about their standing- 
ground, run against each other with bills like poised lances, and 
receive the thrusts among the breast feathers, which in the case 
of the ruffs are developed into what serves as a shield [much as 
in the Lion}. Coots rush at each other on an unsteady surface 
of water-plants, and strike each other with their legs. Swans, 
geese, and ducks chase each other till one of the combatants 
