412 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



with fearful effect. It has been recorded by a trustworthy 

 A^riter* that in Derbyshire a kite struck at a game-hen 

 accompanied by her chickens, when the cock rushed to the 

 rescue, and drove his spur right through the eye and skull 

 of the aggressor. The spur was with difficulty drawn from 

 the skull, and as the kite, though dead, retained his grasp, 

 the two birds were firmly locked together ; but the cock 

 when disentangled was very little injured. The invincible 

 courage of the game-cock is notorious ; a gentleman who 

 long ago witnessed the brutal scene, told me that a bird 

 had both its legs broken by some accident in the cock-pit, 

 and the owner laid a wager that if the legs could be spliced 

 so that the bird could stand upright, he would continue 

 fighting. This was effected on the spot, and the bird 

 fought with undaunted courage until he received his death- 

 stroke. In Ceylon a closely allied, wild species, the Gallus 

 Stanletji, is known to fight desperately '' in defense of his 

 seraglio,^' so that one of the combatants is frequently found 

 dead.f An Indian partridge {Ortygoruis giilaris), the 

 male of which is furnished with strong and sharp spurs, is 

 so quarrelsome ' ' that the scars of former fights disfigure 

 the breast of almost every bird you kill. "J 



The males of almost all gallinaceous birds, even those 

 which are not furnished with spurs, engage during the 

 breeding-season in fierce conflicts. The Capercailzie and 

 Black-cock (Tetrao iii^ogallus and T. tetrix) which are 

 both polygamists, have regular appointed places, where 

 during many weeks they congregate in numbers to fight 

 together and to display their charms before the females. 

 Dr. W. Kovalevsky informs me that in Russia he has seen 

 the snow all bloody on the arenas where the capercailzie 

 have fought; and the black-cocks *' make the feathers fly 

 in every direction," when several ^' engage in a battle 

 royal." The elder Brehm gives a curious account of the 

 Balz, as the love-dances and love-songs of the black-cock 

 are called in Germany. The bird utters almost contin- 

 uously the strangest noises: ^Mie holds his tail up and 

 spreads it out like a fan, he lifts up his head and neck with 

 all the feathers erect, and stretches his wings from the, 



*Mr. Hewitt in the "Poultry Book by Tegetineier," 1866, p. 137. 

 f Layard, " Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.," vol. xiv, 1854, p. 63, 

 ^ Jerdon, "Birds of India," vol. iii, p. 574. 



