"creature." At such times the black-cocks are so absorbed that they become almost blind and dea but less so than the capercailzie: hence bird after bird may be shot on the same spot, or even caught by the hand. After performing these antics the males begin to fight: and the same black-cock, in order to prove his strength over several antagonists, will visit in the course of ɔne morning several Balz-places, which remain the same during successive years."

The peacock with his long train appears more like a dandy than a warrior, but he sometimes engages in fierce contests: the Rev. W. Darwin Fox informs me that at some little distance from Chester two peacocks became so excited whilst fighting, that they flew over the whole city, still engaged, until they alighted on the top of St. John's tower.

The spur, in those gallinaceous birds which are thus provided, is generally single; but Polyplectron (see fig. 51, p. 397) has two or more on each leg; and one of the Blood-pheasants (Ithaginis cruentus) has been seen with five spurs. The spurs are generally confined to the male, being represented by mere knobs or rudiments in the female; but the females of the Java peacock (Puro muticus) and, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, of the small firebacked pheasant (Euplocamus erythropthalmus) possess spurs. In Galloperdix it is usual for the males to have two spurs, and for the females to have only one on each leg.15 Hence spurs may be considered as a masculine structure, which has been occasionally more or less transferred to the females. Like most other secondary sexual characters, the spurs are highly variable, both in number and development, in the same species.

Various birds have spurs on their wings. But the Egyptian goose (Chenalopex ægyptiacus) has only "bare obtuse knobs," and these probably shew us the first steps by which true spurs have been developed in other species. In the spur-winged goose, Plectropterus gambensis, the males have much larger spurs than the females; and they use them, as I am informed by Mr. Bartlett, in fighting together, so that, in this case, the wing-spurs serve as sexual weapons; but according to Livingstone, they are chiefly used in the defence of the young. The Palamedea (fig. 38) is armed with a pair of spurs on each wing; and these are such formidable weapons, that a single blow has been known to drive a dog howling away. But it does not appear that the spurs in this case, or in that of some of the spur-winged rails

are larger in the male than in the female.16 In certain plovers, however, the wing-spurs must be considered as a sexual cha

Fig. 38. Palamedea cornuta (from Brehm) shewing the double wing-spurs, and the

16 For the Egyptian goose, see

Macgillivray, British Birds,' vol. iv.

p. 639. For Plectropterus, 'Living-
stone's Travels,' p. 254. For Pala-

racter. Thus in the male of our common peewit (Vanellus cristatus) the tubercle on the shoulder of the wing becomes more prominent during the breeding-season, and the males fight together. In some species of Lobivanellus a similar tubercle becomes developed during the breeding-season "into a short horny spur." In the Australian L. lobatus both sexes have spurs, but these are much larger in the males than in the females. In an allied bird, the Hoplopterus armatus, the spurs do not increase in size during the breeding-season; but these birds have been seen in Egypt to fight together, in the same manner as our peewits, by turning suddenly in the air and striking sideways at each other, sometimes with fatal results. Thus also they drive away other enemies.17

The season of love is that of battle; but the males of somo birds, as of the game-fowl and ruff, and even the young males of the wild turkey and grouse," are ready to fight whenever they meet. The presence of the female is the teterrima belli cousa. The Bengali baboos make the pretty little males of the amadavat (Estrelda amandava) fight together by placing three small cages in a row, with a female in the middle; after a little time the two males are turned loose, and immediately a desperate battle ensues. 19 When maný males congregate at the same appointed spot and fight together, as in the case of grouse and various other birds, they are generally attended by the females,20 which afterwards pair with the victorious combatants. But in some cases the pairing precedes instead of succeeding the combat: thus according to Audubon," several males of the Virginian goat-sucker (Caprimulgus virginianus) court, in a highly entertaining manner the female, and no sooner has she made her choice, "than her approved gives chase to all intruders, and drives

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medea, Brehm's 'Thierleben,' B. iv. s. 740. See also on this bird Azara,

Voyages dans l'Amerique merid.' tom. iv. 1809, pp. 179, 253.

17 See, on our peewit, Mr. R. Carr in Land and Water,' Aug. 8th, 1868, p. 46. In regard to Lobivanellus, see Jerdon's 'Birds of India,' vol. iii p. 647, and Gould's

Handbook of Birds of Australia,' vol. ii. p. 220. For the Holopterns, see Mr. Allen in the Ibis,' vol. v. 1863, p. 156.

18 Audubon, 'Ornith. Biography,' vol. ii. p. 492; vcl. i. pp. 4-13. 19 Mr. Blyth, Land and Water, 1867, p. 212.

20

Richardson on Tetrao umbellus 'Fauna Bor. Amer.: Birds,' 1831, p. 343. L. Lloyd, 'Game Birds of Sweden,' 1867, pp. 22, 79, on the capercailzie and black-cock. Brehm, however, asserts (Thierleben,' &c., B. iv. s. 352) that in Germany the grey-hens do not generally attend the Balzen of he black-cocks, but this is an exception to the common rule; possibly the hens may lie hidden in the surrounding bushes, as is known to be the case with the grey-hens in Scandinavia, and with other species in N. America.

21 6

"Ornithological

vol. ii. p. 275.

Biography,

"them beyond his dominions." Generally the males try to drive away or kill their rivals before they pair. It does not, however, appear that the females invariably prefer the victorious males. I have indeed been assured by Dr. W. Kovalevsky that the female capercailzie sometimes steals away with a young male who has not dared to enter the arena with the older cocks, in the same manner as occasionally happens with the does of the red-deer in Scotland. When two males contend in presence of a single female, the victor, no doubt, commonly gains his desire; but some of these battles are caused by wandering males trying to distract the peace of an already mated pair.

22

Even with the most pugnacious species it is probable that the pairing does not depend exclusively on the mere strength and courage of the male; for such males are generally decorated with various ornaments, which often become more brilliant during the breeding-season, and which are sedulously displayed before the females. The males also endeavour to charm or excite their mates by love-notes, songs, and antics; and the courtship is, in many instances, a prolonged affair. Hence it is not probable that the females are indifferent to the charms of the opposite sex, or that they are invariably compelled to yield to the victorious males. It is more probable that the females are excited, either before or after the conflict, by certain males, and thus unconsciously prefer them. In the case of Tetrao umbellus, a good observer 23 goes so far as to believe that the battles of the males are all a sham, performed to show themselves to the greatest advantage before the admiring females who assemble around; for "I have never been able to find a maimed hero, and seldom more "than a broken feather." I shall have to recur to this subject, but I may here add that with the Tetrao cupido of the United States, about a score of males assemble at a particular spot, and strutting about, make the whole air resound with their extraordinary noises. At the first answer from a female the males begin to fight furiously, and the weaker give way; but then, according to Audubon, both the victors and vanquished search for the female, so that the females must either then exert a choice, or the battle must be renewed. So, again, with one of the field-starlings of the United States (Sturnella ludoviciana) the males engage in fierce conflicts, "but at the sight of a female they all fly after her, as if mad." 24

"Brehm, 'Thierleben,' &c., B. iv. 1867, p. 990. Audubon, 'Ornith. Biography, vol. ii. p. 492.

23 Land and Water,' July 25th, 1868, p. 14.

24 Audubon's 'Ornitholog. Biography; on Tetrao cupido, vol. ii, p. 492; on the Sturrus, vol. ii. p

219.

Vocal and instrumental music.-With birds the voice serves to oxpress various emotions, such as distress, fear, anger, triumph, or mere happiness. It is apparently sometimes used to excite terror, as in the case of the hissing noise made by some nestlingbirds. Audubon 25 relates that a night-heron (Ardea nycticorax, Linn.) which he kept tame, used to hide itself when a cat approached, and then "suddenly start up uttering one of the "most frightful cries, apparently enjoying the cat's alarm and flight." The common domestic cock clucks to the hen, and the hen to her chickens, when a dainty morsel is found. The hen, when she has laid an egg," repeats the same note very often, "and concludes with the sixth above, which she holds for a longer time; "26 and thus she expresses her joy. Some social birds apparently call to each other for aid; and as they flit from tree to tree, the flock is kept together by chirp answering chirp. During the nocturnal migrations of geese and other water-fowl, sonorous clangs from the van may be heard in the darkness overhead, answered by clangs in the rear. Certain cries serve as danger signals, which, as the sportsman knows to his cost, are understood by the same species and by others. The domestic cock crows, and the humming-bird chirps, in triumph over a defeated rival. The true song, however, of most birds and various strange cries are chiefly uttered during the breeding-season, and serve as a charm, or merely as a call-note, to the other sex.

.6

Naturalists are much divided with respect to the object of the singing of birds. Few more careful observers ever lived than Montagu, and he maintained that the "males of song-birds and "of many others do not in general search for the female, but, on the contrary, their business in the spring is to perch on some conspicuous spot, breathing out their full and amorous notes, which, by instinct, the female knows, and repairs to the spot to "choose her mate." 27 Mr. Jenner Weir informs me that this is certainly the case with the nightingale. Bechstein, who kept birds during his whole life, asserts, "that the female canary always chooses the best singer, and that in a state of nature "the female finch selects that male out of a hundred whose "notes please her most." 28 Ther can be no doubt that birds closely attend to each other's song.

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Mr. Weir has told me of vögel,' 1840, s. 4. Mr. Harrison Weir likewise writes to me:-"1 "am informed that the best singing "males generally get a mate first, "when they are bred in the same room."

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