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I have fine roosters a year old this April; would you advise keeping them for mating with the same hens next season, or do you advise selling each year and getting fresh stock? The young males will be all right to mate with the same hens next season that is, if they come through the molt with vigor. They will be just two years old and at their best. The molt is the test for both, hens and cocks.
Late in the afternoon, when the same stillness reigns, the same scenes are repeated. There is a black variety, quite rare, but mating freely with the gray, from which it seems to be distinguished only in color. The red squirrel is more common and less dignified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty larceny about the barns and grain-fields.
He was not amazed when, in the gloom, he saw the red-cheeked youth with both arms about the girl nor was he shocked at detecting instantly that her struggles were meant to be futile against her assailant's might. The birds were mating, life was forward, and Nature loves to be democratically lavish with her choicest secrets.
Nor did he move or make a sign till she came back and stood beside me. "A pretty scene!" he burst forth then with anger. "But, by God! no marriage is it!" Alixe's hand tightened on my arm, and she drew close to me. "A marriage that will stand at Judgment Day, Gabord," said I. "But not in France or here. 'Tis mating wild, with end of doom."
Opal should give him, out of her life, one day one day in the little hotel on the Bürgenstock, where his mother and her lover had been so happy. They, too, should be happy as happy as two mating birds in a new-built nest for one day they would forget all yesterdays and all to-morrows.
Thus he became intimately acquainted with every part of his district. There were more objects than flowers, however, to delight him. The birds and the animals were a constant source of pleasure. Often he had opportunity to study their actions and their habits. The mating season brought a wealth of pleasing experiences. Sometimes he came across a mother grouse with her brood of little ones.
There is one particular in which the bird families are much more human than our four-footed kindred. I refer to the practice of courtship. The male of all birds, so far as I know, pays suit to the female and seeks to please and attract her. This the quadrupeds do not do; there is no period of courtship among them, and no mating or pairing as among the birds.
It must be a happy mystery. So you would think to hear the redwinged blackbirds proclaim it clear March mornings. Flocks of them, and every flock a myriad, shelter in the dry, whispering stems. They make little arched runways deep into the heart of the tule beds. Miles across the valley one hears the clamor of their high, keen flutings in the mating weather.
Love and mating these are the broad lines upon which the perpetuation of the species starts. What possible abstractions are there in them? Is not their character concrete and visible? Whatever fine sentiments are evolved, we know their source and comprehend their function. There is no mystery here. What is this jealousy, which all animals may have?
No mating male bird could have put more of entreating tenderness into his voice. No mating female bird could have answered with more perplexity of abandon. For a moment Frank stared. Then, with a sudden sense of eavesdropping, he moved noiselessly back until he struck the main trail. He kept on until he came to the shady side of his favorite reef. He took from his pocket a book and began to read.
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