164 
THE COCK OF THE PLAINS. 
tlie disproportionately amall, convex, thin-quilled 
wing, — so thin, that a vacant space half as broad as 
a quill appears between eacli, — the flight may be said 
to be a sort of fluttering, more than any thing else : 
the bird giving two or three claps of the wings in 
quick succession, at the same time hurriedly rising 
then shooting or floating, swinging from side to side, 
gradually falling, and thus producing a clapping, whir- 
ring sound. When started the voice is click, click, 
cuck, like the common pheasant. They pair in Mai'ch 
and April. Small eminences on the banks of streams 
are the places usually selected for celebrating the 
weddings, the time generally about sunrise. The 
wings of the male are lowered, buzzing on the ground, 
the tail spread like a fan, somewhat erect, the bare 
yellow oesophagus inflated to a prodigious size, fully 
half as large as his body, and, from its soft membra- 
nous substance, being well contrasted with the scale- 
like feathers below it on the breast, and the flexile 
silky feathers on the neck, which on these occasions 
stand erect. In this grotesque form he displays, in 
the presence of his intended mate, a variety of atti- 
tudes. His love-song is a confused grating, hut not 
offensively disagreeable tone — something that we can 
imitate, but have adiflSculty of expressing — ‘ Hiirr- 
liurr-kurr-r-r-r-hoo,’ ending in a deep hollow tone, 
not unlike the sound produced by blowing into a large 
reed. Nest on the ground under the shade of Piir- 
shia and Artemisia, or near streams, among Pka- 
laris arundinacea, carefully constructed of dry grass 
and slender twigs. Eggs from thirteen to seventeen, 
