84 THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS 



and his feet to balance him on the ground or in the 

 tree, unless the battle is in mid-air. 



Most fights of the bird world take place on the 

 courting grounds, and in the mating season. As 

 in the human world, the male usually does the 

 courting; but this is not always true, even among 

 birds. Among the bustard-quails — small birds, 

 about the size of a common English sparrow, na- 

 tives of Africa and Asia — are found such strange 

 and unusual customs that we quote the words of 

 Mr. A. O. Hume, perhaps the best authority on 

 Indian birds : "The most remarkable point in the 

 life history of these bustard-quails is the extraor- 

 dinary fashion in which amongst them the position 

 of the sexes is reversed. The females are the 

 larger and handsomer birds. The females only, 

 call; the females only, fight. Natives say that 

 they fight for the males, and probably this is true. 

 What is certain is that, whereas in the case of al- 

 most all the other game-birds, it is the males alone 

 that can be caught in spring cages, etc., to which 

 they are attracted by the calls of other males, and 

 to which they come with a view to fighting, in this 

 species no males will ever come to a cage baited 

 with a male, whereas every female within hearing 

 rushes to a cage in which a female is confined, and 

 if allowed to meet during the breeding season, any 



