46 BIRD WATCHING 



or, as is usual in the contrary, flies away. If she 

 admits them pairing may take place, and at the 

 conclusion of it both birds utter a peculiar, low, deep, 

 and very raucous note which I have heard on this 

 occasion, but on no other." 



If the courting of the female stock-dove by the 

 male whilst on the ground, or amongst the branches 

 of a tree, is of a somewhat heavy nature — more 

 pompous than beautiful — as is, I think, the case, it 

 is lightened in the most graceful manner by the 

 aerial intermezzos — the broidery of the theme — which 

 charmingly relieve and set it off; for often, "after 

 bowing and walking together a little, near, but not 

 touching — a Hermia and Lysander distance — both 

 rise, both mount, attain a height, then pause, and, 

 as from the summit of some lofty precipice, descend 

 on outspread joy- wings in a very music of motion. 

 It is pretty, too, to watch two of them flying together 

 and then alighting, when one instantly bows before 

 the other with empress^ mien. Before, you have not 

 known which was which, or who was escorting the 

 other. Now you feel sure that it is he — the empress^, 

 the pompously bowing bird — who has taken her — the 

 retiring, the coy one — for a little fly." For though 

 it is undoubted that the female stock-dove bows to 

 the male, yet, in courting, it is the male, I believe, 

 who commences and carries it to a fine art 



There are no birds surely — or, at least, not many 

 — who can sport more gracefully in the air than these. 

 "One is sitting and cooing almost in a rabbit-burrow, 

 and so close to a rabbit there that it looks like a little 

 call. Sure enough, too, after a while, the bird, who, 

 of course, is the visitor, rises — but into the air sans 



