Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/209

Rh described, being near to me, whilst the second, though a good deal farther off, was still plain through the glasses, in spite of the increasing gloom. Soon after this I had to lay the glasses down, and then I only got "dreary gleams about the moorland" as the wings of now one and now another bird were flung up. The interest to-day lay in the fact that, as far as I could observe, this wing-waving "dance"—for so, I think, it may be called—did not take place during (much less was it incidental to or part of) a hunt for food. The birds (so it appears to me) danced it purely for its own sake, and not in connection with anything else, which I had not felt satisfied about before. With most, at any rate, I think this was the case—certainly with the two that I saw best, and have chiefly instanced. One bird only I distinctly saw running and pecking something (insects presumably) off the dry scrubby grass, but this was not waving its wings.

On the last day of observation (Sept. 5th) the birds were early occupied in chasing insects, but it was not till twilight that the wing-waving began to be at all prominent. It then alternated with the chase, and it is possible that the two, though quite distinct, may sometimes have been combined together into a dancing hunt, or hunting dance, as indeed it seemed to me at the time (though very likely I was wrong). On all four occasions it is the close of the day that has ushered in the dancing, so that it would seem that the birds relax themselves in this way before leaving their grounds, and flying off into the night. (They are active during the night, and their cry is often to be heard as they fly high in the air.) But these dance-wavings of the wings must be carefully distinguished from when a bird pursuing an insect jumps into the air after it, aiding itself with its wings—as might naturally be expected. It is also possible that they may sometimes beat down a moth with the wings, but I do not think this has been the explanation of anything I have yet seen.

September 9th.—Arrived at about 7 p.m., when it was already getting dusk. Several birds there, but not so many as the day before. They were dancing when I got there, and I noted now, without any doubt, that they often made little leaps into the air whilst waving the wings—not at all in the same way, however, as the bird that I saw jump into the air after an insect. There was no doubt whatever as to the motive of that, and I now