Page:BirdWatchingSelous.djvu/134

102 of these skuas. May not some of the figures of animals in heraldry have come right down from savage times, even if they do not represent totems? Savages, as we know, catch the more salient and strongly characterised attitudes of animals with wonderful truth and force.

The two birds will often (as might be expected) assume this pose without any previous descent on upraised wings, and, presumably, such descent need not be followed either by this or any other special attitude. Also, when so posing, they do not always stand in line, but indifferently sometimes, as far as relative position is concerned, though at the same approximate distance from one another. I have seen the descent followed by the pose, but not in line, and I have seen the pose exactly as I have described it, but not preceded by the descent.

Obviously (or, at least, in all probability), the birds would be as likely to stand in line when posing on one occasion as on another, and I have therefore put them into line here to give a picture of this nuptial sport when at its best and fullest.

Sometimes during these visits that the birds pay to each other, the two will bend their heads down together and pick and pull at the grass. When they raise them there may be a blade or two of it in the bill of one, which is allowed to drop in a negligent, desultory way. Or one, which I take to be the female, plucks up a tuft and walks with it to the male as though to show him. She lets it drop, and then both birds, standing front to front, lower their heads at the same time and utter a shrill though not a loud cry. This seems as though one bird were suggesting