158 JUNGLE FOLK 



little tail which is hidden away underneath. He then 

 spreads out his feathers and suddenly faces the hen, 

 flapping his wings, and causing every feather in his 

 body to quiver with a curious noise, so that he appears 

 to be seized with a shivering fit. The hen either affects 

 not to notice him, or assumes an air of studied boredom. 

 Unfortunately for Darwin's theor}^, peacocks some- 

 times show off in the absence of other living creatures. 

 Moreover, a young cock with a train of which a magpie 

 would be ashamed will strut about and show off with 

 the greatest pride. 



There are in the '* Zoo " at Lahore a number of 

 albino peacocks. These, although handsome birds, 

 are not so beautiful as the coloured variety, being a 

 uniform white ; nevertheless they are exceedingly 

 popular with the hens, and experience no difficulty in 

 cutting out all the coloured beaux. It is very naughty 

 of the hens to prefer the albinos, for by so doing they 

 deal a severe blow to the theory of sexual selection. 

 Stolzman has quite another hypothesis to account for 

 the superior beauty of the male. As any ** suffragette " 

 will tell you, the male is a more or less superfluous 

 being ; the world would get along much better if he 

 were less plentiful. Hence, in the interests of the race, 

 it is necessary that the numbers of the pernicious 

 creature should be strictly limited. Nature has, there- 

 fore, arrayed cock-birds in coats of many colours so 

 that they shall be easily seen and devoured by beasts 

 of prey ! Wallace, again, thinks that the compara- 

 tively sombre hues of the hen are due to her greater 

 need of protection, as it is she who does all the in- 



