Bird Watching. Edmund Selous
desires of the male bird, to which he tries to make the female submit. That she, in the very midst of resisting, taken, as it would seem, "in her heart's extremest hate," should yet bow to her would-be ravisher seems strange, but she certainly does so. Whether it would be more or less strange that two male birds, whilst fiercely contending, should act in this way, I will leave to my readers to decide, and thus settle the nature of these curious ceremonious encounters and their graceful and interesting aerial continuations, to their own satisfaction.[3]
[3] With this suggestion, however, that fighting may be blended with sexual display in the combats of male birds owing to association of ideas, for rivalry is the main cause of such combats.
However it may be, the bow itself—which I will now notice more fully—is certainly of a nuptial character, and is seen in its greatest perfection only when the male stock-dove courts the female. This he does by either flying or walking up to her and bowing solemnly till his breast touches the ground, his tail going up at the same time to an even more than corresponding height, though with an action less solemn. The tail in its ascent is beautifully fanned, but it is not spread out flat like a fan, but arched, which adds to the beauty of its appearance. As it is brought down it closes again, but, should the bow be followed up, it is instantly again fanned out and sweeps the ground, as its owner, now risen from his prostrate attitude, with head erect and throat swelled, makes a little rush towards the object of his desires. The preliminary bow, however, is more usually followed by another, or by two or three others, each one being a distinct and separate affair, the bird remaining with his head sunk and tail raised and fanned for some seconds before rising to repeat. Thus it is not like two or three little bobs—which is the manner of wooing pursued by the turtle-dove—but there is one set bow, to which but one elevation and depression of the tail belongs, and the offerer of it must not only regain his normal upright attitude, but remain in it for a perceptible period before making another. This bow, therefore, is of the most impressive and even solemn nature, and expresses, as much as anything in dumb show can express, "Madam, I am your most devoted."
I believe—but I am not sure, and quite ready to be corrected—that the stock-dove's bow is either a silent one, or, at least, that the note uttered is subdued—the latter seems the more probable. At any rate, I was never able to catch it, either when watching on the warrens at a greater or less distance, or when not so far, amongst trees—for the stock-dove woos also amongst the leafy woods, as does the wood-pigeon, of which it is a smaller replica, but without the ring. "The male wood-pigeon, when courting, bows to the female lengthways along the branch on which he is sitting, elevating his tail at the same time, in just the same way as does the stock-dove. As he does so, he says 'coo-oo-oo,' the last syllable being long drawn out, and having a very intense expression, with a rise in the tone of it, sometimes almost to the extent of becoming a soft shrillness. Having delivered himself of this long 'coo-oo-oo,' he says several times together in an undertone, and very quickly, 'coo, coo, coo coo,' or 'coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo,' after which, rising, and then bowing again, he recommences with the long-drawn, impassioned 'coo-oo-oo,' as before. All this he repeats several times, the number, probably, depending on whether the female bird stays to hear his addresses or, as is usual in the contrary, flies away. If she admits them pairing may take place, and at the conclusion of it both birds utter a peculiar, low, deep, and very raucous note which I have heard on this occasion, but on no other."
If the courting of the female stock-dove by the male whilst on the ground, or amongst the branches of a tree, is of a somewhat heavy nature—more pompous than beautiful—as is, I think, the case, it is lightened in the most graceful manner by the aerial intermezzos—the broidery of the theme—which charmingly relieve and set it off; for often, "after bowing and walking together a little, near, but not touching—a Hermia and Lysander distance—both rise, both mount, attain a height, then pause, and, as from the summit of some lofty precipice, descend on outspread joy-wings in a very music of motion. It is pretty, too, to watch two of them flying together and then alighting, when one instantly bows before the other with empressé mien. Before, you have not known which was which, or who was escorting the other. Now you feel sure that it is he—the empressé, the pompously bowing bird—who has taken her—the retiring, the coy one—for a little fly." For though it is undoubted that the female stock-dove bows to the male, yet, in courting, it is the male, I believe, who commences and carries it to a fine art.
There are no birds surely—or, at least, not many—who can sport more gracefully in the air than these. "One is sitting and cooing almost in a rabbit-burrow, and so close to a rabbit there that it looks like a little call. Sure enough, too, after a while, the bird, who, of course, is the visitor, rises—but into the air sans cérémonie—and makes as though to fly away. But having gone only a little distance, with quick strokes of the wings, it rests upon their expanded surface, and, in a lovely easy sweep, sails round again in the direction from whence it started. It passes beyond the place, the wings now again pulsating, then makes another wide sweep of grace and comes down near where it was before. In a little it again rises, again sweeps and circles, and again descends in the neighbourhood. Another now appears, flying towards it, and as it passes over where the first is sitting, this one rises into the air to meet it. They approach, glide from each other, again approach, and thus alternately widening and narrowing the distance between them, one at length goes down, the other passing on to alight, at last, at that distance which the etiquette of the affair prescribes. This circling flight on swiftly resting wings is most beautiful. The pausing sweep, the lazy onwardness, the marriage, as it were, of rest and speed is a delicious thing, another sense, a delicate purged voluptuousness, a very banquet to the eye." Such beauty-flights are almost always in the early morning, when appreciative persons are mostly in bed, seen only by the dull eye of some warrener walking to find and kill the beasts that have lain tortured in his traps all night, exciting (if any) but a murderous thought at the time, with the after-reflection, "If I'd a had a gun now——"
Stock-doves, as is well known, often choose rabbit-burrows to lay their eggs in, and, having regard to their powers of flight and arborial aptitudes, it might be thought that but for the rabbits they would never be seen on these open, sandy tracts, the abode of the peewit, stone-curlew, ringed plover, red-legged partridge, and other such waste-haunting species. But the nesting habits of a bird must follow its general ones almost necessarily in the first instance, and though there are many apparently striking instances to the contrary, they are probably to be explained by the former having remained fixed whilst the latter have changed. No doubt, therefore, the stock-dove began to spend much of its time on the ground before it thought of laying its eggs there, and of the facilities offered by rabbit-holes for so doing. That the habits as well as the organisms of all living creatures are in a more or less plastic and fluctuating state is, I believe, a conclusion come to by Darwin, and it agrees entirely with the little I have been able to observe in regard to birds. I have seen the robin redbreast become a wagtail or stilt-walker, the starling a wood-pecker or fly-catcher, the tree-creeper also a fly-catcher, the wren an accomplished tree-creeper, the moor-hen a partridge or plover, and so on, and so on, all such instances having been noted down by me at the time. Most birds are ready to vary their habits suddenly and de novo if they can get a little profit on the transaction, and the extent to which they have varied gradually in a long course of time and under changed conditions is, of course, a commonplace after Darwin. The wood-pigeon has not yet begun to lay its eggs in rabbit-holes or anywhere but in trees and bushes, but that it may some day do so is not improbable, for it comes down sometimes, though not very frequently, on the same sandy wastes that are loved by the stock-dove, and here, like him, the male will court the female as though on the familiar bough.[4] When I have seen him courting her thus on the ground, the low bow which he makes her has been prefaced by one or more curious hops, which I have not seen in the stock-dove's courting. They look curious because they are so out of character, hopping being, as far as I know, a mode of progression foreign to all the columbidæ. Whether the wood-pigeon hops upon any other occasion I cannot be sure. If he does not—and it is certainly not his usual habit—his adoption of it here may be looked upon as a purely nuptial