STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 51 



in the most graceful manner, alighting on the same 

 branch beside the waiting partner. This is a beautiful 

 thing to see, and especially in the early fresh morning 

 of a clear, lovely day. It seems then as if the bird 

 kept flying up to greet " the early rising sun," or as 

 rejoicing in the beauty of all things. These are the 

 coquetries, the prettinesses of loving couples, as to 

 which — on one side at least — what has not been said 

 by the writers of our clumsy race ! But " if the lions 

 were sculptors " — How might a bird novelist expatiate ! 

 Not less beautiful is the nuptial flight of the wood- 

 pigeon. Of this, the clapping of the wings above the 

 back is the most salient feature, a sound which is 

 never heard during the winter or after the breeding- 

 season is fairly over. " In full flight, the bird smites 

 its wings two or three times smartly together above 

 the back, then, holding them extended and motionless, 

 it seems to pause for one instant — if there can be 

 pause in swiftest motion — before sinking and then 

 rising and sinking again, as does a wave, or as though 

 it rested on an aerial switchback. Then continuing 

 his flight — recommencing, that is to say, the strokes 

 of his wings — he may do the same when he has gone 

 a few air-fields farther, and so " pass in music out of 

 sight." Sometimes there will be only a single clap 

 of the wings instead of two or three,* but always it 

 is made just before the still-spreading of them, and 

 the hanging pause in the air ; for let the speed be 

 never so great — and it hardly seems possible that it 

 could be checked so suddenly, and why should the 

 bird wish to check it? — yet the effect upon the eye 

 of the wings extended and motionless after they have 

 * Sometimes, too, not any, the flight being the same. 



