28 The Irish Naturalist. March, 



But if so the visible change was so slight that I failed to 

 make it out. That the changed relations subsisting among 

 the four birds were due to a capricious change of preference 

 on the part of the Reeves would be the natural way of 

 accounting for the matter (as Mr. Edmund Selous might 

 very justly contend) but for the fact that the red Ruff 

 had also acquired possession of the black Ruff's old home, 

 in which, only a week before, the masterful black Ruff 

 would never allow him to set foot. This clearly shows 

 that he had become the stronger bird, that he occupied his 

 new home in right of conquest (though no battle may have 

 taken place), and that the Reeves probably followed a more 

 reasonable instinct than mere arbitrary fancy in throwing 

 in their lot with the winner of the more coveted piece of 

 ground. 



The red Ruff did not long retain his rulership. By 

 the nth of June the display of both birds was over, the 

 dark Ruff having moulted nearly the whole of his " show," 

 while the red Ruff was reduced to a sort of half-and-half. 

 The four birds now trotted sociably about over the whole 

 enclosure, the two Ruffs, in particular, keeping by one 

 another with the greatest amity. The Reeves seemed 

 comparatively indifferent to each other's presence — they 

 had had enough of it, perhaps, being together all the 

 spring — and one of them seemed disposed for a few minutes 

 (while I watched them) to start a little flirtation with the 

 red Ruff, who, however, completely ignored her. 



Imperfect as the foregoing record has been, I think it 

 helps to show that the " Law of Territory " (in a form 

 modified to suit the case of polygamous birds) is not without 

 its influence in deciding for a species like Machetes pitgnax 

 to what individuals the carrying on of the kind shall be 

 most largely intrusted. The existence of such a law is, 

 indeed, almost suggested by what Mr. Selous himself has 

 said' in his account of his observations in Holland — that 

 " each Ruff has certainly a place of its own, and the most 

 envenomed fights appear to me to result from one bird 

 pitching down in another's place, when he flies in." And 



1 Zool. (4) vol. xi., p. 172. 



