Peregrine chasing Duck.


[CHAPTER V.]


Courtship Flights

"A pair of falcons wheeling on the wing,
In clamourous agitation …"—Wordsworth.

The wing-play of black-game and grouse—The “musical ride” of the snipe—The “roding” of the woodcock—The musical flights of redshank and curlew—The “tumbling” of the lapwing—The raven’s somersaults—The courting flight of the wood pigeon—The mannikin’s “castanets”—Wings as lures—The strange pose of the sun-bittern—The “wooing” of the chaffinch and the grasshopper-warbler—Darwin and wing-displays—The wonderful wings of the argus-pheasant.

O