STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 41 



into before and at each pause in the duel between 

 Hamlet and Laertes, as arranged by Sir Henry Irving 

 at the Lyceum. There were four or five birds 

 together when this fight broke out, but I could not 

 feel quite sure whether the non-fighting ones watched 

 the fighting of the other two. If they did, I do not 

 think they were at all keenly interested in it. Also, 

 the fighting birds may sometimes, when they bowed, 

 have done so to the birds that stood near, but it 

 never seemed to me that this was the case, and it 

 certainly was not so in most instances." 



In the spring from the ground which one of the 

 fighting birds sometimes makes, coming down on the 

 other one's back and striking with the wings, we 

 have, perhaps, the beginning of what may develop 

 into a contest in the clouds, for let the bird that is 

 undermost also spring up, and both are in the air 

 in the position required ; and it is natural that the 

 undermost should continue to rise, because it could 

 more easily avoid the blows of the other whilst in the 

 '\ air, by sinking down through it, than it could on the 

 ground at such a disadvantage. Whether, in the 

 following instance, the one bird jumped on to the 

 other's back does not appear, but, as will be seen, the 

 flight, which I had thought to be of a sexual and 

 nuptial character, was the direct outcome of a scrim- 

 mage. "A short fight between two birds. — It is 

 really most curious. There is a blow and then a 

 bow, then a vigorous set-to, with hard blows and 

 adroit parries, a pause with two profound bows, 

 another set-to, and then the birds rise, one keeping 

 just above the other, and ascend slowly, with quickly 

 and constantly beating wings, in the way so often 



