1920 ] Townsend, Courtship in Birds. OOO 



The fact that the brilliant plumage is assumed in many birds 

 for the nuptial season only seems to bear out the importance of 

 display for courtship. The ducks go into the eclipse plumage 

 immediately after the courtship season. The brilliantly marked 

 male Wood Duck and the Eider alike assume the modest and 

 quiet dress of the female. This is true of many other birds. The 

 Bobolink and the Scarlet Tanager, the Goldfinch and the Myrtle 

 Warbler doff their striking dress in the fall and appear in the 

 modest apparel of the female and immature. 



Courtship means the act of wooing in love. Whatever theory 

 we accept we must admit that the male appears to endeavor to 

 attract the female in one or all of three ways: first by a display 

 of bright or striking colors, secondly by postures or movements 

 which accentuate this display or call attention to his agility or 

 skill — in other words by the dance in its broadest sense — and 

 thirdly by sounds either vocal or instrumental — song in its broad- 

 est sense. 



The classical courtship of the Peacock illustrates in an extreme 

 form the display of color. It also includes the two other factors 

 of dance and song. It may well be sketched here as an exagger- 

 ated form and epitome of our subject. 



In the presence of the hen and when in an amorous mood the 

 Peacock erects the stiff tail feathers which support the marvelous 

 plumes that arise from the back and form the upper tail coverts. 

 He walks with mincing steps, turning this way and then that, so 

 that his beauty may be seen from all points by the hen who walks 

 carelessly by. Seen from in front, his blue-green head and neck 

 with black and white face markings and tufted plumes stand 

 out like a Chinese jade carving in the center of a concave sea- 

 shell of shimmering green, embossed at regular intervals with 

 eyes of marvelous beauty and detail. From behind, the stiff 

 gray tail feathers supporting the shell are seen to be set off below 

 by an abundance of black and white down. The wings of brown 

 and blue frame the sides. Suddenly the Peacock turns and flashes 

 the full radiance of his beauty directly at the hen, he vibrates his 

 downward stretched wings and quivers his stiff tail feathers so 

 that they give forth a sound of rattling reeds. The green disk is 

 thereby set all of a tremble in time with this instrumental music, 



