Chap. XIIL] DISPLAY BY THE MALE. 91 



solely for display, as some birds act thus whose wings are 

 not beautiful. This is the case with the domestic cock, 

 but it is always the wing on the side opposite to the female 

 which is expanded, and at the same time scraped on the 

 ground. The male goldfinch behaves differently from all 

 other finches : his wings are beautiful., the shoulders being 

 black, with the dark-tipped wing-feathers spotted with 

 white and edged with golden yellow. When he courts 

 the female, he sways his body from side to side, and 

 quickly turns his slightly-expanded wings first to one side 

 then to the other, with a golden flashing effect. No other 

 British finch, as Mr. Weir informs me, turns during his 

 courtship from side to side in this manner ; not even the 

 closely-allied male siskin, for he would not thus add to his 

 beauty. 



Most of the British Buntings are plain-colored birds ; 

 but in the spring the feathers on the head of the male 

 reed-bunting {Emberiza schoeniculus) acquire a fine black 

 color by the abrasion of the dusky tips ; and these are 

 erected during the act of courtship. Mr. Weir has kept 

 two species of Amadina from Australia : the A. castanotis 

 is a very small and chastely-colored finch, with a dark 

 tail, white rump, and jet-black upper tail-coverts, each of 

 the latter being marked with three large conspicuous oval 

 spots of white. 86 This species, when courting the female, 

 slightly spreads out and vibrates these party-colored tail- 

 coverts in a very peculiar manner. The male Amadina 

 Lathami behaves very differently, exhibiting before the 

 female his brilliantly-spotted breast and scarlet rump, and 

 scarlet upper tail-coverts. I may here add from Dr. 

 Jerdon, that the Indian Bulbul (Pycnonotus licemorrhous) 

 has crimson under tail-coverts, and the beauty of these 

 feathers, it might be thought, could never be well cxhib- 



88 For the description of these birds, see Gould's 'Hand-book to the 

 Birds of Australia,' vol i. 1865, p. 417. 



