cockpit, and the owner laid a wager that if the legs could be spliced so
that the bird could stand upright, he would continue fighting. This was
effected on the spot, and the bird fought with undaunted courage until he
received his death-stroke. In Ceylon a closely allied, wild species, the
Gallus Stanleyi, is known to fight desperately "in defence of his
seraglio," so that one of the combatants is frequently found dead. (12.
Layard, 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' vol. xiv. 1854, p. 63.)
An Indian partridge (Ortygornis gularis), the male of which is furnished
with strong and sharp spurs, is so quarrelsome "that the scars of former
fights disfigure the breast of almost every bird you kill." (13. Jerdon,
'Birds of India,' vol. iii. p. 574.)

The males of almost all gallinaceous birds, even those which are not
furnished with spurs, engage during the breeding-season in fierce
conflicts. The Capercailzie and Black-cock (Tetrao urogallus and T.
tetrix), which are both polygamists, have regular appointed places, where
during many weeks they congregate in numbers to fight together and to
display their charms before the females. Dr. W. Kovalevsky informs me that
in Russia he has seen the snow all bloody on the arenas where the
capercailzie have fought; and the black-cocks "make the feathers fly in
every direction," when several "engage in a battle royal." The elder Brehm
gives a curious account of the Balz, as the love-dances and love-songs of
the Black-cock are called in Germany. The bird utters almost continuously
the strangest noises: "he holds his tail up and spreads it out like a fan,
he lifts up his head and neck with all the feathers erect, and stretches
his wings from the body. Then he takes a few jumps in different
directions, sometimes in a circle, and presses the under part of his beak
so hard against the ground that the chin feathers are rubbed off. During
these movements he beats his wings and turns round and round. The more
ardent he grows the more lively he becomes, until at last the bird appears
like a frantic creature." At such times the black-cocks are so absorbed
that they become almost blind and deaf, 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 one morning several Balz-places, which remain
the same during successive years. (14. Brehm, 'Thierleben,' 1867, B. iv.
s. 351. Some of the foregoing statements are taken from L. Lloyd, 'The
Game Birds of Sweden,' etc., 1867, p. 79.)

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 (Fig. 51) 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 (Pavo
muticus) and, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, of the small fire-backed
pheasant (Euplocamus erythrophthalmus) 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. Jerdon, 'Birds of India': on Ithaginis, vol. iii. p.
523; on Galloperdix, p. 541.) 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.

[Fig.38. Palamedea cornuta (from Brehm), shewing the double wing-spurs,
and the filament on the head.]

Various birds have spurs on their wings. But the Egyptian goose
(Chenalopex aegyptiacus) 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. For the Egyptian
goose, see Macgillivray, 'British Birds,' vol. iv. p. 639. For
Plectropterus, Livingstone's 'Travels,' p. 254. For Palamedea, Brehm's
'Thierleben,' B. iv. s. 740. See also on this bird Azara, 'Voyages dans
l'Amerique merid.' tom. iv. 1809, pp. 179, 253.) In certain plovers,
however, the wing-spurs must be considered as a sexual character. 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. 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 Hoplopterus, see Mr. Allen in the
'Ibis,' vol. v. 1863, p. 156.)

The season of love is that of battle; but the males of some birds, as of
the game-fowl and ruff, and even the young males of the wild turkey and
grouse (18. Audubon, 'Ornithological Biography,' vol. ii. p. 492; vol. i.
pp. 4-13.), are ready to fight whenever they meet. The presence of the
female is the teterrima belli causa. 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. Mr. Blyth, 'Land and Water,' 1867, p. 212.) When many 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. 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,' B. iv.
s. 352) that in Germany the grey-hens do not generally attend the Balzen of
the 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 gray-hens in Scandinavia, and with other species in N. America.),
which afterwards pair with the victorious combatants. But in some cases
the pairing precedes instead of succeeding the combat: thus according to
Audubon (21. 'Ornithological Biography,' vol. ii. p. 275.), several males
of the Virginian goat-sucker (Caprimulgus virgianus) "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 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. Brehm, 'Thierleben,' etc., B. iv. 1867, p. 990. Audubon,
'Ornithological Biography,' vol. ii. p. 492.)

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. 'Land and Water,' July 25, 1868, p. 14.)
goes so far as to believe that the battles of the male "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. Audubon's 'Ornithological Biography;' on
Tetrao cupido, vol. ii. p. 492; on the Sturnus, vol. ii. p. 219.)

VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

With birds the voice serves to express 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
nestling-birds. Audubon (25. 'Ornithological Biography,' vol. v. p.
601.), 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. The Hon. Daines Barrington,
'Philosophical Transactions,' 1773, p. 252.); 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.

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
armorous notes, which, by instinct, the female knows, and repairs to the
spot to choose her mate." (27. 'Ornithological Dictionary,' 1833, p.
475.) 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. 'Naturgeschichte der Stubenvogel,' 1840, s. 4.
Mr. Harrison Weir likewise writes to me: - "I am informed that the best
singing males generally get a mate first, when they are bred in the same
room.") There can be no doubt that birds closely attend to each other's
song. Mr. Weir has told me of the case of a bullfinch which had been
taught to pipe a German waltz, and who was so good a performer that he cost
ten guineas; when this bird was first introduced into a room where other
birds were kept and he began to sing, all the others, consisting of about
twenty linnets and canaries, ranged themselves on the nearest side of their
cages, and listened with the greatest interest to the new performer. Many
naturalists believe that the singing of birds is almost exclusively "the
effect of rivalry and emulation," and not for the sake of charming their
mates. This was the opinion of Daines Barrington and White of Selborne,
who both especially attended to this subject. (29. 'Philosophical
Transactions,' 1773, p. 263. White's 'Natural History of Selborne,' 1825,
vol. i. p. 246.) Barrington, however, admits that "superiority in song
gives to birds an amazing ascendancy over others, as is well known to bird-
catchers."

It is certain that there is an intense degree of rivalry between the males
in their singing. Bird-fanciers match their birds to see which will sing
longest; and I was told by Mr. Yarrell that a first-rate bird will
sometimes sing till he drops down almost dead, or according to Bechstein
(30. 'Naturgesch. der Stubenvogel,' 1840, s. 252.), quite dead from
rupturing a vessel in the lungs. Whatever the cause may be, male birds, as
I hear from Mr. Weir, often die suddenly during the season of song. That
the habit of singing is sometimes quite independent of love is clear, for a
sterile, hybrid canary-bird has been described (31. Mr. Bold, 'Zoologist,'
1843-44, p. 659.) as singing whilst viewing itself in a mirror, and then
dashing at its own image; it likewise attacked with fury a female canary,
when put into the same cage. The jealousy excited by the act of singing is
constantly taken advantage of by bird-catchers; a male, in good song, is
hidden and protected, whilst a stuffed bird, surrounded by limed twigs, is
exposed to view. In this manner, as Mr. Weir informs me, a man has in the
course of a single day caught fifty, and in one instance, seventy, male
chaffinches. The power and inclination to sing differ so greatly with
birds that although the price of an ordinary male chaffinch is only
sixpence, Mr. Weir saw one bird for which the bird-catcher asked three
pounds; the test of a really good singer being that it will continue to
sing whilst the cage is swung round the owner's head.

That male birds should sing from emulation as well as for charming the
female, is not at all incompatible; and it might have been expected that
these two habits would have concurred, like those of display and pugnacity.
Some authors, however, argue that the song of the male cannot serve to
charm the female, because the females of some few species, such as of the
canary, robin, lark, and bullfinch, especially when in a state of
widowhood, as Bechstein remarks, pour forth fairly melodious strains. In
some of these cases the habit of singing may be in part attributed to the
females having been highly fed and confined (32. D. Barrington,
'Philosophical Transactions,' 1773, p. 262. Bechstein, 'Stubenvogel,'
1840, s. 4.), for this disturbs all the functions connected with the
reproduction of the species. Many instances have already been given of the
partial transference of secondary masculine characters to the female, so
that it is not at all surprising that the females of some species should
possess the power of song. It has also been argued, that the song of the
male cannot serve as a charm, because the males of certain species, for
instance of the robin, sing during the autumn. (33. This is likewise the
case with the water-ouzel; see Mr. Hepburn in the 'Zoologist,' 1845-46, p.
1068.) But nothing is more common than for animals to take pleasure in
practising whatever instinct they follow at other times for some real good.
How often do we see birds which fly easily, gliding and sailing through the
air obviously for pleasure? The cat plays with the captured mouse, and the
cormorant with the captured fish. The weaver-bird (Ploceus), when confined
in a cage, amuses itself by neatly weaving blades of grass between the
wires of its cage. Birds which habitually fight during the breeding-season
are generally ready to fight at all times; and the males of the
capercailzie sometimes hold their Balzen or leks at the usual place of
assemblage during the autumn. (34. L. Lloyd, 'Game Birds of Sweden,'
1867, p. 25.) Hence it is not at all surprising that male birds should
continue singing for their own amusement after the season for courtship is
over.

As shewn in a previous chapter, singing is to a certain extent an art, and
is much improved by practice. Birds can be taught various tunes, and even
the unmelodious sparrow has learnt to sing like a linnet. They acquire the
song of their foster parents (35. Barrington, ibid. p. 264, Bechstein,
ibid. s. 5.), and sometimes that of their neighbours. (36. Dureau de la
Malle gives a curious instance ('Annales des Sc. Nat.' 3rd series, Zoolog.,
tom. x. p. 118) of some wild blackbirds in his garden in Paris, which
naturally learnt a republican air from a caged bird.) All the common
songsters belong to the Order of Insessores, and their vocal organs are
much more complex than those of most other birds; yet it is a singular fact
that some of the Insessores, such as ravens, crows, and magpies, possess
the proper apparatus (37. Bishop, in 'Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and
Physiology,' vol. iv. p. 1496.), though they never sing, and do not
naturally modulate their voices to any great extent. Hunter asserts (38.
As stated by Barrington in 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1773, p. 262.)
that with the true songsters the muscles of the larynx are stronger in the
males than in the females; but with this slight exception there is no
difference in the vocal organs of the two sexes, although the males of most
species sing so much better and more continuously than the females.

It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing. The Australian genus
Menura, however, must be excepted; for the Menura Alberti, which is about
the size of a half-grown turkey, not only mocks other birds, but "its own
whistle is exceedingly beautiful and varied." The males congregate and
form "corroborying places," where they sing, raising and spreading their
tails like peacocks, and drooping their wings. (39. Gould, 'Handbook to
the Birds of Australia,' vol. i. 1865, pp. 308-310. See also Mr. T.W. Wood
in the 'Student,' April 1870, p. 125.) It is also remarkable that birds
which sing well are rarely decorated with brilliant colours or other
ornaments. Of our British birds, excepting the bullfinch and goldfinch,
the best songsters are plain-coloured. The kingfisher, bee-eater, roller,
hoopoe, woodpeckers, etc., utter harsh cries; and the brilliant birds of
the tropics are hardly ever songsters. (40. See remarks to this effect in
Gould's 'Introduction to the Trochilidae,' 1861, p. 22.) Hence bright
colours and the power of song seem to replace each other. We can perceive
that if the plumage did not vary in brightness, or if bright colours were
dangerous to the species, other means would be employed to charm the
females; and melody of voice offers one such means.

[Fig. 39. Tetrao cupido: male. (T.W. Wood.)]

In some birds the vocal organs differ greatly in the two sexes. In the
Tetrao cupido (Fig. 39) the male has two bare, orange-coloured sacks, one
on each side of the neck; and these are largely inflated when the male,
during the breeding-season, makes his curious hollow sound, audible at a
great distance. Audubon proved that the sound was intimately connected
with this apparatus (which reminds us of the air-sacks on each side of the
mouth of certain male frogs), for he found that the sound was much
diminished when one of the sacks of a tame bird was pricked, and when both
were pricked it was altogether stopped. The female has "a somewhat
similar, though smaller naked space of skin on the neck; but this is not
capable of inflation." (41. 'The Sportsman and Naturalist in Canada,' by
Major W. Ross King, 1866, pp. 144-146. Mr. T.W. Wood gives in the
'Student' (April 1870, p. 116) an excellent account of the attitude and
habits of this bird during its courtship. He states that the ear-tufts or
neck-plumes are erected, so that they meet over the crown of the head. See
his drawing, Fig. 39.) The male of another kind of grouse (Tetrao
urophasianus), whilst courting the female, has his "bare yellow oesophagus
inflated to a prodigious size, fully half as large as the body"; and he
then utters various grating, deep, hollow tones. With his neck-feathers
erect, his wings lowered, and buzzing on the ground, and his long pointed
tail spread out like a fan, he displays a variety of grotesque attitudes.
The oesophagus of the female is not in any way remarkable. (42.
Richardson, 'Fauna Bor. American: Birds,' 1831, p. 359. Audubon, ibid.
vol. iv. p. 507.)

[Fig. 40. The Umbrella-bird or Cephalopterus ornatus, male (from Brehm).]

It seems now well made out that the great throat pouch of the European male
bustard (Otis tarda), and of at least four other species, does not, as was
formerly supposed, serve to hold water, but is connected with the utterance
during the breeding-season of a peculiar sound resembling "oak." (43. The
following papers have been lately written on this subject: Prof. A.
Newton, in the 'Ibis,' 1862, p. 107; Dr. Cullen, ibid. 1865, p. 145; Mr.
Flower, in 'Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1865, p. 747; and Dr. Murie, in 'Proc. Zool.
Soc.' 1868, p. 471. In this latter paper an excellent figure is given of
the male Australian Bustard in full display with the sack distended. It is
a singular fact that the sack is not developed in all the males of the same
species.) A crow-like bird inhabiting South America (see Cephalopterus
ornatus, Fig. 40) is called the umbrella-bird, from its immense top knot,
formed of bare white quills surmounted by dark-blue plumes, which it can
elevate into a great dome no less than five inches in diameter, covering
the whole head. This bird has on its neck a long, thin, cylindrical fleshy
appendage, which is thickly clothed with scale-like blue feathers. It
probably serves in part as an ornament, but likewise as a resounding
apparatus; for Mr. Bates found that it is connected "with an unusual
development of the trachea and vocal organs." It is dilated when the bird
utters its singularly deep, loud and long sustained fluty note. The head-
crest and neck-appendage are rudimentary in the female. (44. Bates, 'The
Naturalist on the Amazons,' 1863, vol. ii. p. 284; Wallace, in
'Proceedings, Zoological Society,' 1850, p. 206. A new species, with a
still larger neck-appendage (C. penduliger), has lately been discovered,
see 'Ibis,' vol. i. p. 457.)

The vocal organs of various web-footed and wading birds are extraordinarily
complex, and differ to a certain extent in the two sexes. In some cases