STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 37 



sometimes there is a little flight backwards and for- 

 wards along the bank in the intervals of crossing. 

 This continues for something like an hour, but at 

 last the pursuing bird, as both fly out from the bank, 

 makes a little dart, and, overtaking the other one, 

 both flutter down into the stream. They rise from 

 it straight up into the air like two blackbirds fight- 

 ing, then fall back into it again, and now there is 

 a violent struggle in the water. Whilst it lasts the 

 birds are swimming, just as two ducks would be 

 under similar circumstances, and every now and 

 then, in the pauses of exhaustion, both rest, floating 

 on the water. The combat would be as purely 

 aquatic as with coots or moor-hens, if it were not 

 that the two birds often struggle out of the water 

 and rise together into the air, where they continue 

 the struggle, each one rising alternately above the 

 other and trying to push it down — it would seem 

 with the legs. These were the tactics adopted in 

 the water too, but yet, with a good deal of motion 

 and exertion, there seems but little of fury. The 

 birds are not acharn^, or, at least, they do not 

 seem to be. It is a soft sort of combat, and now 

 it has ended in the combatants making their 

 mutual toilette quite close to one another. One 

 stands on the shore and preens itself, the other sits 

 just off" it on the water and bathes in it like a duck." 

 Even here, owing principally to the friendly toilette- 

 scene, I was not quite clear as to the nature of the 

 bird's actions. How completely I at first mistook 

 it in the case of the stock-dove with the way in 

 which it was afterwards made plain to me, the 

 following will show : — 



