Dancing Birds.

Manawatu Herald, 1 August 1893, Page 3

Dancing Birds.

In Outing there is an interesting article iipon " Feathered Dancers." The best bird dancers in America are the short tailed grouse, who trample down about thirty or forty square feet of grass in order to make for themselves a ball-room. The prairie fowl are also fond of dancing but they usually end with a fight. The spruce partridge, the dusky grouse, the sage cock, and the turkey gobblers are all dancers :— An aged negro once tried to explaiu to me the oause of the turkey's strutting by saying that "De Land gin dem gobblehs seech little pimples 6' heads dat He could not get no sense into 'em, so He ined 'em act like stuck up dandies foil to get wives." " How is that?" I asked. " Why, all de sense dey got is dey clothes, sah ; dey aint got none in dey cranoouis. Dey's si.isless, sah, jes' like nigger dudes -whttt 'pends on de clothes dey neber paid foh to get de gals to lub 'em. No, sah; dem gobblehs and black dudes, aint got. no tracshuns foh de female heart 'cept in dey airs, and dey knows it. Dats why dey strut so much."