BIRDS. 449 



apparent delight of several others. IS'ow spreading its 

 wings, throwing up its head, or opening its tail like a fan; 

 now strutting about with a hopping gait until tired, when 

 it gabbled some kind of note, and was relieved by another. 

 Thus three of them successively took the field, and then, 

 with self-approbation, withdrew to rest." The Indians, in 

 order to obtain their skins, wait at one of the meeting- 

 places till the birds are eagerly engaged in dancing, and 

 then are able to kill with their poisoned arrows four or five 

 males, one after the other. * With birds of paradise a dozen 

 or more full-plumaged males congregate in a tree to hold a 

 dancing-party, as it is called by the natives; and here they 

 fly about, raise their wings, elevate their exquisite plumes, 

 at id make them vibrate, and the whole tree seems, as Mr. 

 Wallace remarks, to be filled with waving plumes. When 

 thus engaged they become so absorbed that a skillful archer 

 may shoot nearly the whole party. These birds, when kept 

 in confinement in the Malay Archipelago, are said to take 

 much care in keeping their feathers clean; often spreading 

 them out, examining them, and removing every speck of 

 dirt. One observer, who kept several pairs alive, did not 

 doubt that the display of the male was intended to please 

 the female, t 



The gold and Amherst pheasants during their courtship 

 not only expand and raise their splendid frills but twist 

 them, as I have myself seen, obliquely toward the female 

 on whichever side she may be standing, obviously in order 

 that a large surface may be displayed before her. J They 

 likewise turn their beautiful tails and tail-coverts a little 

 toward the same side. Mr. Bartlett has observed a male 

 Polyplectron (fig. 51) in the act of courtship, and has 

 shown me a specimen stuffed in the attitude then assumed. 

 The tail and wing feathers of this bird are ornamented 

 with beautiful ocelli, like those on the peacock's train. 



* " Journal of R, Geograph. Soc." vol. x, 1840, p. 236. 



f " Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.," vol. xiii, 1854, p. 157; also 

 Wallace, ibid, vol. xx, 1857, p. 412, and "The Malay Archipelago," 

 vol. ii, 1869, p. 252. Also Dr. Bennett, as quoted by Brehm, " Thier- 

 leben," B. iii, s. 826. 



JMr. T. W. Wood has given ("The Student," April, 1870, p. 

 115) a full account of this manner of display by the gold pheasant 

 and by the Japanese pheasant. Ph. versicolor; and he calls it the 

 lateral or one-sided display. 



