20 BIRD WATCHING 



Having stood like this for some seconds, they assume 

 the normal attitude. This wonderful pose, conceived 

 and made in a vein of stiff formality, but to which the 

 great, glaring, yellow eye gives a look of wildness, 

 almost of insanity, has in it, both during its develop- 

 ment and when its acme has been reached, something 

 quite per se, and in vain to describe. But again one 

 is reminded of what is past and old-fashioned, of 

 chivalry and knight-errantry, of scutcheons and 

 heraldic devices, of Don Quixote and the Baron of 

 Bradwardine." 



It is not only when two birds are by themselves 

 that these or other attitudes are assumed. They will 

 often break out, so to speak, amongst three or four 

 birds running or chasing each other about. All at 

 once one will stop, stiffen into one of them — that 

 especially where the head is lowered till the beak 

 touches, or nearly touches, the ground — and remain 

 so for a formal period. But all such runnings and 

 chasings are, at this time, but a part of the business 

 of pairing, and one divines at once that such attitudes 

 are of a sexual character. The above are a few of the 

 gestures or antics of the great plover or stone-curlew 

 during the spring. I have seen others, but either 

 they were less salient, or, owing to the great distance, 

 I was not able to taste them properly, for which 

 reason, and on account of space, I will not further 

 dwell upon them. What I would again draw atten- 

 tion to, as being, perhaps, of interest, is that here we 

 have a bird with distinct nuptial (sexual) and social 

 (non-sexual) forms of display or antics, and that the 

 former as well as the latter are equally indulged in by 

 both sexes. 



