COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
287 
the case with members of both sexes, we may argue that 
the pair keep together. Migratory birds are of still 
greater consequence in establishing the question of per¬ 
manent pairing. In Africa I have often met with pairs 
of birds evidently migrating, which still kept together, 
thus throwing many other connubial couples into the 
shade! Still further in the interior, on the Blue Nile, 
we shot a couple of Booted Eagles, which were never 
at any time separated more than five hundred paces from 
one another, thus hunting and migrating in company. 
On my return through Egypt I met with these pretty 
Eagles in small flocks; and yet I could distinguish those 
that were paired off, by a sort of link or secret under¬ 
standing which seemed to exist between them, and which 
distinguished them from the rest of the company. Those 
Swans which I observed in the winter season on the 
lake of Mensaleh were always to be seen in pairs. Among 
the Starlings, whose songs I had listened to in Egypt 
and Spain, during the months of January and February, 
even though massed together in large flocks, the indi¬ 
vidual couples could be distinguished. The same may be 
remarked in this country, when our northern visitors 
come and take up their winter abode with us. If one 
watches a flock of Fieldfares or Redwings, and can 
manage to shoot at one shot any two birds which may 
be close together, they generally turn out to be male and 
female. 
I will now mention a fact observed by me in Southern 
Nubia, not the only one of the sort by far, which is 
strong proof of birds living and migrating in pairs. On a 
small lake in that country formed by the overflowing of 
the Nile, I saw a pair of Storks at a very unusual time of 
the year. Both birds were strikingly tame, thus attracting 
