42 BIRD WATCHING 



witnessed. It would appear, therefore, that the curious 

 flights of two birds up into the air, the one of them 

 exactly over, and almost touching, the other — wherein, 

 as I have noted, there is frequently a blow with the 

 wings which, to judge by the sound reaching me from 

 a considerable distance, must be sometimes a severe 

 one — are the aerial continuations of combats com- 

 menced on the ground." Sometimes, that is to say. 

 There seems no reason why birds accustomed thus 

 to contend, should not sometimes do so ab initio, and 

 without any preliminary encounter on mother earth — 

 and this, I believe, is the case. 



Here, then, in the stock-dove we have at the 

 nuptial season a kind of flight which seems certainly 

 to be of the nature of a combat, very much resembling 

 that of the peewit at the same season. I have seen 

 peewits lighting on the ground, and once they were 

 for a moment in the air together at a foot or two 

 above it, and the one a little above the other. This, 

 however, may have been mere chance, and I have 

 not seen the one form of combat arise unmistakably 

 out of the other, as in the case of the stock-doves. 

 But assuming that in each case there is a combat, 

 is it certain that the contending birds are always, 

 or generally, two males, and not male and female? 

 It certainly seems natural to suppose this, but with 

 the stock-dove, at any rate (and I believe with pigeons 

 generally), the two sexes sometimes fight sharply ; 

 and, moreover, the female stock-dove bows to the 

 male, as well as the male to the female, both which 

 points will be brought out in the following in- 

 stances : — 



'' A hen bird is sitting alone on the sand, a male 



