104 SEXUAL SELECTION : BIEDS. Part II. 



conjecture is that male magpies must be much more 

 numerous than the females ; and that in the above cases, 

 as well in many others ^vhicll could be given, the males 

 alone had been killed. This apparently liolds good in 

 some instances, for the gamekeepers inDelaniere Forest 

 assured Mr. Fox that the magpies and carrion-crows 

 which they formerly killed in succession in large num- 

 bers near their nests Avere all males ; and they ac- 

 counted for this fact by the males being easily killed 

 whilst bringing food to the sitting females. Macgil- 

 livray, however, gives, on the authority of an excellent 

 observer, an instance of three magpies successively 

 killed on the same nest which were all females ; and 

 another case of six magpies successively killed whilst 

 sitting on the same eggs, which renders it probable 

 that most of them were females, though the male will 

 sit on the eggs, as I hear from Mr. Fox, when the 

 female is killed. 



Sir J. Lubbock's gamekeeper has repeatedly shot, but 

 how^ many times he could not say, one of a pair of jays 

 (Garrulus glandarius), and has never failed shortly 

 afterwards to find the survivor i-ematched. The Kev. 

 W. D. Fox, Mr. F. Bond, and others, have shot one of a 

 pair of carrion-crows (Corvus coroiie), but the nest was 

 soon again tenanted by a pair. These birds are rather 

 common ; but the peregrine falcon {Falco jperegrinus) 

 is rare, yet Mr. Thompson states that in Ireland " if 

 *' either an old male or female be killed in the breed- 

 " ing-season (not an uncommon circumstance), another 

 '' mate is found within a very few days, so that the 

 " eyries, notwithstanding such, casualties, are sure to 

 " turn out their complement of young." Mr. Jenner 

 Weir has known the same thing to occur with the pere- 

 grine falcons at Beachy Head. The same observer 

 informs me that three kestrels, all males {Falco tinnun- 



