312 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS chap. 



existence. The portentous feathers carried by the 

 Argus Pheasant render him nearly incapable of 

 flight: he keeps to the jungle and trusts to his running 

 power. The comb and gills of a Gamecock put him at 

 a great disadvantage with an antagonist who has had 

 them trimmed off. The Bird of Paradise with his 

 forest of plumes, and the Lyre Bird with his far- 

 spreading burden of beauty, seem very ill-fitted for the 

 struggle of life. Of Peacocks a good authority writes : 

 " Peafowl run very fast, but the old cocks, burdened 

 with tails six feet in length, are poor flyers ; and I have 

 frequently seen my men run them down during the 

 hot hours of the day by forcing them to take two or 

 three long flights in succession, in places where they 

 could be driven from one detached piece of jungle to 

 another." x The question, then, was to prove (i) that 

 the cock-birds largely outnumbered the hens so that 

 some would necessarily remain without mates ; (2) 

 that the hen-bird actually did exert a choice. The 

 evidence on the first point is still insufficient. Dr. 

 Guillemard mentions in the Cruise of the Marchesa, 

 that his collection of birds included 584 males, 285 

 females, and 1 1 1 of undetermined sex. This seems 

 to show a large preponderance of males. But the 

 male is the more conspicuous, and therefore is more 

 likely to be shot. The question, however, is not so 

 important as it might appear, since a large number of 

 the species in which the cock-bird has the grander 

 plumage are polygamous, and in them the number 

 of males is obviously excessive. Even in the case 

 of monogamous species Darwin was able to argue 

 1 Hume and Marshall's Game Birds of India, vol. i., p. 88. 



