till he seemed to have two or three pairs of wings, whirring and
running together like the spokes of a swift-moving wheel, and the
drumbeats rolled together into a long call and died away in the
woods.

Generally he stood up on his toes, as a rooster does when he
flaps his wings before crowing; rarely he crouched down close to
the log; but I doubt if he beat the wood with his wings, as is
often claimed. Yet the two logs were different; one was dry and
hard, the other mouldy and moss-grown; and the drumcalls were as
different as the two logs. After a time I could tell by the sound
which log he was using at the first beat of his wings; but that,
I think, was a matter of resonance, a kind of sounding-board
effect, and not because the two sounded differently as he beat
them. The call is undoubtedly made either by striking the wings
together over his back or, as I am inclined to believe, by
striking them on the down beat against his own sides.

Once I heard a wounded bird give three or four beats of his
drum-call, and when I went into the grapevine thicket, where he
had fallen, I found him lying flat on his back, beating his sides
with his wings.

Whenever he drums he first struts, because he knows not how many
pairs of bright eyes are watching him shyly out of the coverts.
Once, when I had watched him strut and drum a few times, the
leaves rustled, and two hen grouse emerged from opposite sides
into the little opening where his log was. Then he strutted with
greater vanity than before, while the two hen grouse went gliding
about the place, searching for seeds apparently, but in reality