For more than a fortnight after their arrival the sexes, though feeding in company, do not apparently manifest a disposition to assume conjugal relationship. The desire for food seems to outweigh every other consideration. The inclemency of the weather, and the coldness of the earth, may have much to do with holding the amatory forces in check. But when the opportune period arrives, which it does in the course of events, the sexes desist in a measure from their riotous living and give the nobler instincts of their being a chance to assert their power. The males are the first to feel the changes which are being wrought in their natures. For more than a week from the incipiency of this feeling, in the early morning and evening hours, they may be seen exercising themselves by means of “curious spiral gyrations” in mid-air, and uttering, as earthwards they descend, a note which has been likened to the word _kwank_. This note may be a call to the female in the spring, but as it is often uttered in the fall after the breeding-season is past, it may also be a summons for the gathering together of the members of the same household. The production of these sounds seems a labor of very great effort. But the movements of the males at these times must be seen to be appreciated. The head and bill are bent forward until the latter comes into contact with the ground, and, just as the sound is being emitted, the body is urged violently forward. These spasmodic exertions having ceased, the actor in this drama twitches his abbreviated, half-spread tail, assumes an erect attitude of listening, and, if no response is elicited, repeats his characteristic cry with all its accompanying movements. If the call awakes an answering note, the happy lover flies to the presence of the one he seeks and lavishes upon her the most endearing caresses. Sometimes, as Audubon affirms, the male awaits the arrival of the dear one, and does not fly to meet her. The summons, according to the same eminent authority, seem sometimes to be replied to by one of the same sex, which is always the prelude to a fierce encounter between the two, for, on such occasions, when the feelings are in a high state of tension, the most intense enmity exists between the males. But these contentions are ordinarily short-lived, and cease with the assumption of matrimonial relations.