XI COLOUR AND SONG 311 



ing antics. Those who were selected left descendants 

 behind, and thus grand plumage and voice became 

 more and more developed. He found support for 

 his view in the habits of those species in which the 

 hen is more brightly coloured and larger than the cock- 

 bird. With them it is the hen-birds who fight among 

 one another ; the males sit upon the eggs and care for 

 the young. Among these birds is the Indian Turnix 

 Taigoor, the females of which are kept, like Gamecocks, 

 by the natives for fighting. The cock-birds, it is said, 

 undertake the whole duties of incubation and nursing, 

 the hens absenting themselves and collecting in flocks 

 as soon as they have laid. The Painted Snipe, 

 another Indian bird, is an instance of the same thing. 

 Ostriches and their allies have similar habits. The 

 cock-birds are responsible for incubation and the 

 care of the young. But the female is, at any rate not 

 in all the allied families, the statelier bird. The male 

 Cassowary is larger and more brightly coloured about 

 the head than his partner, and the cock Ostrich is 

 larger than the hen-bird whose eggs he hatches. 



Darwin saw in the Indian Turnix and Painted 

 Snipe a confirmation of his theory. The brilliant 

 colours were due to selection. But here it was the 

 brilliant hen-bird that was selected by the male. One 

 of his strongest arguments was the fact that the 

 splendid plumes were often a serious inconvenience 

 and even a danger to the bird which carried them. 

 Instead of natural selection lopping off these cum- 

 bersome appendages, female taste stepped in and 

 preserved what, according to the great law of the 

 survival of the fittest, ought to have passed out of 



