3i8 BIRD WATCHING 



star or patch which, I think, is upon it, and which, 

 little as it may seem in a stuffed specimen or one 

 quite still or hardly seen, becomes a conspicuous 

 feature under such circumstances as I have men- 

 tioned. That this patch, or the whole tail, means 

 something I feel sure, but as to whether it is a badge 

 or an ornament — whether natural or sexual selection * 

 has been at work — I can say little. In the latter case 

 the same force would have been brought to bear in 

 two different directions, and this, I think, has been 

 often the case with our song-birds, though it seems 

 to have been agreed to talk as if the opposite were. 

 Surely the bullfinch, chaffinch, robin, linnet, green- 

 finch, and others — the males of all of which show 

 off to some extent before the females — have been 

 selected (if at all) as much by the eye as by the ear 

 of the latter ; whilst the lyre-bird of Australia offers 

 an example of a highly adorned species that is also 

 conspicuously musical. The nightingale is glossy, and 

 sometimes — in effect, at least, and in some part of it — 

 bright. It may be getting brighter, but, if so, it will 

 probably have to rival the kingfisher before it ceases 

 to be an encouraging symbol to those who hide a 

 worth which they feel beneath a want which every- 

 body can see. 



No good illustration, that I know of, exists of the 

 nightingale ; none, at least, which at all resembles the 

 bird as I have seen it, either sitting, hopping, flying, 



* Sexual, as I now believe. A recent lucky glimpse of nightingale 

 courtship has assured me that I have not unconsciously exaggerated. 

 Indeed, the ruddy glow of the broadly fanned tail, caught in the last 

 rays of the descending sun, could hardly be exaggerated. But the 

 colour was on all the rectrices. They alone, I think, are the patch, 

 the star. 



