8 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS 



were in very active and at times violent court- 

 ship about my grounds. I could not quite under- 

 stand the meaning of all the fuss and flutter. 

 Both birds of each pair were very demonstrative, 

 but the female in each case the more so. She 

 followed the male everywhere, lifting and twin- 

 kling her wings, and apparently seeking to win 

 him by both word and gesture. If she was not 

 telling him by that cheery, animated, confiding, 

 softly endearing speech of hers, which she poured 

 out incessantly, how much she loved him, what 

 was she saying? She was constantly filled with 

 a desire to perch upon the precise spot where he 

 was sitting, and if he had not moved away I 

 think she would have alighted upon his back. 

 Now and then, when she flitted away from him, 

 he followed her with like gestures and tones and 

 demonstrations of affection, but never with quite 

 the same ardor. The two pairs kept near each 

 other, about the house, the bird-boxes, the trees, 

 the posts and vines in the vineyard, filling the 

 ear with their soft, insistent warbles, and the eye 

 with their twinkling azure wings. 



Was it this constant presence of rivals on both 

 sides that so stimulated them and kept them up 

 to such a pitch of courtship? Finally, after I 

 had watched them over an hour, the birds began 

 to come into collision. As they met in the vine- 



