and darted across the road by the pigeons, apparently on his belly, with head and neck extended and almost touching the ground. He posed in that attitude with bill touching the opposite bank for a few moments, then made the return trip in the same ridiculous fash- ion, ending with the same pose. Next he darted through the flock in the same way, then off to the cage to tease the magpies and display for their benefit. A bird in the acacias along the north line about 75 feet away next attracted his attention, so he tore up and down the row of trees rattling his beak without vocal accompaniment. Another dash at the magpie cage followed, then a wide sweeping curve through the berry patch with a rattling boo put him in position to make an- other dash at my bodyguard which had accompanied me. This accomplish- ed, he endeavored to pull twigs off of a broom bush, picked up and ran off with leaves then composed himself to stare through the fence to the north. However this did not last long and his next act was an entirely new and unexpected one. I was about 20 feet south of him chuckling at his antics. Without warning he passed like an arrow through the air with a rushing of wings about 6 feet from my ear. The first 20 or 30 yards was practically horizontal. As he crossed the south fence, he rose slightly, and for the next hundred or so sailed down hill without flapping his wings, landing roughly 40 feet lower than his starting point in the back garden of a home. His flight was extremely swift. As he landed a sparrow-hawk rose and landed on the chimney of the house. Rhody ran to that end of the building and I thought his next move would be to go up to the roof, so went down to investigate, but could not see any signs of him at all. All of this seems to be in the spirit of play and he apparently takes some sort of satisfaction in exhibiting his foolish accomplish- ments to other birds, and enjoys company when he feels like it, notwithstanding his usually solitary habit. Whether the sparrow-hawk formed a part of the pattern is not clear, though R may have seen him