Chapter 13 - Page 2

kind has been observed with the goldfinch (Carduelis elegans), for I am assured by Mr. J. Jenner Weir that the bird-catchers can distinguish the males by their slightly longer beaks. The flocks of males are often found feeding on the seeds of the teazle (Dipsacus), which they can reach with their elongated beaks, whilst the females more commonly feed on the seeds of the betony or Scrophularia. With a slight difference of this kind as a foundation, we can see how the beaks of the two sexes might be made to differ greatly through natural selection. In some of the above cases, however, it is possible that the beaks of the males may have been first modified in relation to their contests with other males; and that this afterwards led to slightly changed habits of life.

Law of Battle.- Almost all male birds are extremely pugnacious, using their beaks, wings, and legs for fighting together. We see this every spring with our robins and sparrows. The smallest of all birds, namely the humming-bird, is one of the most quarrelsome. Mr. Gosse* describes a battle in which a pair seized hold of each other's beaks, and whirled round and round, till they almost fell to the ground; and M. Montes de Oca, in speaking or another genus of humming-bird, says that two males rarely meet without a fierce aerial encounter: when kept in cages "their fighting has mostly ended in the splitting of the tongue of one of the two, which then surely dies from being unable to feed."*(2) With waders, the males of the common water-hen (Gallinula chloropus) "when pairing, fight violently for the females: they stand nearly upright in the water and strike with their feet." Two were seen to be thus engaged for half an hour, until one got hold of the head of the other, which would have been killed had not the observer interfered; the female all the time looking on as a quiet spectator.*(3) Mr. Blyth informs me that the males of an allied bird (Gallicrex cristatus) are a third larger than the females, and are so pugnacious during the breeding- season that they are kept by the natives of eastern Bengal for the sake of fighting. Various other birds are kept in India for the same purpose, for instance, the bulbuls (Pycnonotus hoemorrhous) which "fight with great spirit."*(4)

* Quoted by Mr. Gould, Introduction to the Trochilidae, 1861, page 29. *(2) Gould, ibid., p. 52. *(3) W. Thompson, Natural History of Ireland: Birds, vol. ii., 1850, p. 327. *(4) Jerdon, Birds of India, 1863, vol. ii., p. 96.

The polygamous ruff (see Machetes pugnax, fig. 37) is notorious for his extreme pugnacity; and in the spring, the males, which are considerably larger than the females, congregate day after day at a particular spot, where the females propose to lay their eggs. The fowlers discover these spots by the turf being trampled somewhat bare. Here they fight very much like game-cocks, seizing each other with their beaks and striking with their wings. The great ruff of feathers