126 
Capt. Blakiston on the Birds of the 
as is always the case on these occasions, and did not seem to 
heed my approach; but as I wanted to get as near a view as possi¬ 
ble, I went down on my hands and knees, and crawled towards 
the spot. Getting closer, I lay flat on my stomach, and pushed 
myself along till I gained the cover of a small stone (a rare 
thing on the prairies) near the top of the knoll, within ten 
yards of some of the birds, where I stationed myself, and was 
well repaid the trouble of getting there. In this instance there 
were eight or ten birds (there are often many more) engaged 
in the performance. The two nearest to me were in the atti¬ 
tudes of fighting-cocks opposed to each other, and, besides the 
feathers of the occiput, ear-coverts, and whole neck being set 
out to the greatest extent possible, the sharp-pointed tail was 
erected at right-angles to the back, thereby causing the light- 
coloured under tail-coverts to assume the form of a rosette; 
the wings were lowered and somewhat spread out, touching the 
ground, the quill-feathers of which, kept in a constant quiver, 
made a sound like the rustling of a lady’s silk dress. These two 
every now and then circled round, but kept their bodies in 
the same attitude, their heads nearly touching the ground, and 
again and again they “came up to the scratch.” Occasionally 
one of the two would make a jump in the air to the height of a 
couple of feet, and sometimes they chased one another; but they 
did not appear to fight. A little beyond these two front actors 
was one amusing himself by strutting about with his head as high 
as he could get it, and, like the others, with his tail erect; in 
fact, as his back was inclined, the tail, being vertical, was bent 
forward towards it: this is much more than the bird is wont to 
do at other times; for although, when it is frightened and about 
to take wing, it erects its tail, it is not nearly to the same extent. 
Besides these, others were running about and chasing one 
another in various directions, occasionally taking up the posi¬ 
tion of fighting-cocks, as already described. Then there were a 
couple which appeared to be doing nothing, but still they had 
their tails erected like the others. An odd one or two every 
now and then flew up and pitched again within a few yards. 
But above all this, and besides the rustling sound of the wings, 
there was a constant loud chuckling noise kept up, which added 
