timed. The movements of an army on review-day are not more precise, or more perfectly carried out. During the whole flight not a sound, save the swishing of their wings can be heard. The marvel of it all is beyond the range of words, nor can one express the peculiar delight such a sight affords. Why is it that ducks and geese commonly fly either in Indian file, or in a roughly V-shaped formation, with the apex of the V forward? Why do they not fly all abreast? One cannot say, but they never do. Some mention must be made here of the surprising numbers in which geese, of some species, congregate. Writing of the Brent goose, in his "Bird Life of the Borders," Mr. Abel Chapman--and there are few men who can write with such authority on the subject--tells us:--"Just at dark the whole host rise on the wing together, and make for the open sea. In the morning they have come in by companies and battalions, but at night they go out in one solid army; and a fine sight it is to witness their departure. The whole host, perhaps ten thousand strong, here massed in dense phalanxes, elsewhere in columns tailing off into long skeins, V's or rectilineal formations of every conceivable shape, (but always with a certain formation)--out they go, full one hundred yards high, while their loud clanging, defiance--"honk, honk,--torrock, torrock," and its running accompaniment of lower croaks and shrill bi-tones, resounds for miles around." [Illustration: Peregrine chasing Duck.] CHAPTER V. Courtship Flights "A pair of falcons wheeling on the wing, In clamourous agitation ..."--_Wordsworth._ The wing-play of black-game and grouse--The "musical ride" of the snipe--The "roding" of the woodcock--The musical flights of redshank and curlew--The "tumbling" of the lapwing--The raven's somersaults--The courting flight of the wood pigeon--The mannikin's "castanets"--Wings as lures--The strange pose of the sun-bittern--The "wooing" of the chaffinch and the grasshopper-warbler--Darwin and wing-displays--The wonderful wings of the argus-pheasant. One of the most striking features of bird-life is surely its restless activity. This is always apparent, but it attains to a state of almost feverish excitement as the spring advances, and the parental instincts re-awaken. As they gather strength, so they manifest themselves, in outbursts of song--often of exquisite beauty--strange antics, or wonderful evolutions in mid-air.