dalliance, and between each little bout of it the two will make little fidgety, more-awaiting steps, close about one another. Always, however, or almost always, one of the birds—and this one I take to be the female—is more eager, has a more soliciting manner, and tender-begging look, than the other. It is she who, as a rule, commences and draws the male bird on. She looks fondly up at him, and raising her bill to his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with it, in raising, the feathers of his throat—an action light, but full of endearment. And in every way she shows herself the most desirous, and, in fact, so worries and pesters the poor male gull that often, to avoid her importunities, he flies away. This may seem odd (to non-evolutionists), but I have seen other instances of it. Na doubt in actual courting, before the sexes are paired, the male bird is usually the most eager, but after marriage the female often becomes the wooer. Of this, I have seen some marked instances. That of a female great plover calling up the male by her cries, when pairing took place between them, I have already given, and I have seen precisely the same thing in the case of the kestrel hawk. Female rooks, too, are often very importunate with the males in the rookery when building is going on. It is always a great satisfaction when the male and female of a species differ noticeably in their plumage, as then one is never in uncertainty as to which of them it is that performs any act. Often one must remain quite in the dark as to this, and often, again, one can only surmise. Of course, when one watches birds for any time in the breeding season, one gets clear ideas as to which
