BIRDS, 417 



males also endeavor to charm or excite their mates by love- 

 notes, songs and antics ; and the courtship is, in many 

 instances, a prolonged affair. Hence, it is not probable 

 that the females are indifferent to the charms of the oppo- 

 site sex, or that they are invariably compelled to yield to 

 the victorious males. It is more probable that the females 

 are excited, either before or after the conflict, by certain 

 males, and thus unconsciously prefer them. In the case of 

 Tetrao umbellus, a good observer * goes so far as to believe 

 that the battles of the males ^' are all a sham, performed to 

 show themselves to the greatest advantage before the 

 admiring females who assemble around; for I have never 

 been able to find a maimed hero, and seldom more than a 

 broken feather. ^^ I shall have to recur to this subject, but 

 I may here add that with the Tetrao ciipido of the United 

 States, about a score of males assemble at a particular spot, 

 and, stnitting about, make the whole air resound with 

 their extraordinary noises. At the first answer from a 

 female the males begin to fight furiously, and the weaker 

 give way; but then, according to Audubon, both the \dctors 

 and vanquished search for the female, so that the females 

 must either then exert a choice, or the battle must be 

 renewed. So, again, with one of the field-starlings of the 

 United States {Stnrnella ludoviciana) the males engage in 

 fierce conflicts, '^ but at the sight of a female they all fly 

 after her as if mad.^^ f 



Vocal and Instrumental Music. With birds the voice 

 serves to express various emotions, such as distress, fear, 

 anger, triumph, or mere happiness. It is apparently 

 sometimes used to excite terror, as in the case of the 

 hissing noise made by some nestlings-birds. Audubon X 

 relates that a night-heron (Ardea nycticoraXy Linn.) which 

 he kept tame, used to hide itself when a cat approached, 

 and then " suddenly start up uttering one of the most 

 frightful cries, apparently enjoying the cat's alarm and 

 flight." The common domestic cock clucks to the hen, 

 and the hen to her chickens, when a dainty morsel is 



* "Land and Water," July, 25, 1868, p. 14. 



f Audubon's " Ornitholog. Biography;" on Tetrao cupido, vol. ii, 

 p. 492; on the Sturnus, vol. ii, p. 219. 



X *' Ornithological Biograph.," vol. v, p. 601. 



