a resounding snap. During such displays the white bar 

 across the wing is most conspicuous, serving at once to identify 

 the performer. 



Among our native birds, the only other species which 

 habitually, and especially during the courting season, produce 

 characteristic sounds during flight, by bringing the wings 

 smartly together over the back, is the nightjar. But there 

 are certain small passerine birds, known as manakins, 

 inhabiting the forests of South America, which have the 

 shafts of the quiU-feathers of the forearm enormously 

 thickened. By means of these transformed and translated 

 " castanets," at wiU, the bird can produce a sound which has 

 been Ukened to the crack of a whip. 



So far this discourse has been concerned solely with 

 " courtship " flights, or fhghts associated with pecuUar 

 sounds, dependent on rapid movements of the wing in mid- 

 air for their production. And with the mention of these 

 instances this chapter might, quite legitimately, be brought 

 to an end. Bufit must not. And this, because there are a 

 number of birds which put their wings, during Courtship 

 season, to very different purposes. Spectacular flights and 

 evolutions in mid-air do not appeal to them. They use their 

 wings instead as lures, as a means of adding intensity to 

 strange poses and pirouettings ; whereby they desire to give 

 expression to the amorous feelings which possess them, in the 



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