COURTSHIP. 113 



moss, bedecked with blossoms and berries of the 

 brightest colours. As these ornaments wither 

 they are removed to a heap behind the hut, and 

 replaced by others that are fresh. The hut is 

 circular, and some three feet in diameter, and 

 the mossy lawn in front of it nearly twice that 

 expanse. Each hut and garden are, it is believed, 

 though not known, the work of a single pair of 

 birds, or perhaps of the male only." 



We have now come to the concluding section 

 of this chapter — conquest by battle. In this 

 form of courtship the male birds meet, some- 

 times in mortal combat, often, however, these 

 battles seem to be rather like the tournaments 

 of olden times wherein the "sterner" gather 

 together to a mimic warfare in the presence of 

 the " gentler sex " to win therefrom not only 

 admiration, but a mate. In the real battle, the 

 female is seized by the victor, in the mimic the 

 male who wins most favour is chosen by the 

 female. "Almost all male birds," writes Darwin, 

 "are extremely pugnacious, using their beaks, 

 wings and legs for fighting together." We see 

 this every spring, with our robins and sparrows. 

 The smallest of all birds, namely the humming- 

 bird, is one of the most quarrelsome. Mr Gosse 

 describes a battle in which a pair seized hold 

 of each other's beaks, and whirled round and 

 round till they almost fell to the ground ; and 

 M. Monte de Oca, in speaking of another genus 

 of humming-bird, says, "that two males rarely 

 meet without a fierce aerial encounter : when 

 kept in cages 'their fighting has mostly ended in 

 the splitting of the tongue of one of the two, 

 H 



