it sinks, becoming in its later stages quite faint, and ending, commonly, in a sort of long-drawn-out, quavering trill which the bird seems to pause upon with pleasure. Holding down its head all the time, it seems to drink in every tittle of the sound, and to strive to give it its full and just expression. So much has it, whilst doing this, the appearance of a musician, and so much does the long, straight, orange bill resemble a pipe it is playing on, that if fingers were to appear there of a sudden, and begin to 'govern the stops,' one would hardly feel surprise—for a moment or two. A point to be noted is that the piping bird is not always turned towards the female he is courting, even when close beside her. He turns towards her, commonly (perhaps always), when he begins, but having once begun, he seems more enthralled by his own music than by her, and will turn from side to side, or even right round and away from her, as though in the rhythmical sway of his piping."
Here, then, at last, we have upon our own shores, and amongst our own birds, an unmistakable case of a display or performance of a very marked character, in which three birds are present, though one takes only a passive part. The motive power here is obviously sexual; two males are, at least to all appearance, courting one female. But I made at the time this special observation, that, though the rival birds did, upon two occasions, fly at each other, and though the piping of one always brought the other over to him to pipe in rivalry, yet, when once they began to pipe vigorously, their interest seemed to become centred in, and, as it were, abstracted into this. The actual display, in this case vocal, seemed
