in PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCES AMONG ANIMALS 81 



are distinguished by unusual brilliancy of plumage, the 

 females are much more obscure, and often remarkably plain- 

 coloured. The exceptions are such as eminently to prove the 

 rule, for in most cases we can see a very good reason for 

 them. In particular, there are a few instances among wading 

 and gallinaceous birds in which the female has decidedly 

 more brilliant colours than the male ; but it is a most curious 

 and interesting fact that in most if not all these cases the 

 males sit upon the eggs ; so that this exception to the usual 

 rule almost demonstrates that it is because the process of 

 incubation is at once very important and very dangerous, 

 that the protection of obscure colouring is developed. The 

 most striking example is that of the gray phalarope (Phala- 

 ropus fulicarius). When in winter plumage, the sexes of this 

 bird are alike in coloration, but in summer the female is 

 much the most conspicuous, having a black head, dark wings, 

 and reddish-brown back, while the male is nearly uniform 

 brown, with dusky spots. Mr. Gould in his Birds of Great 

 Britain figures the two sexes in both winter and summer 

 plumage, and remarks on the strange peculiarity of the usual 

 colours of the two sexes being reversed, and also on the still 

 more curious fact that the "male alone sits on the eggs," 

 which are deposited on the bare ground. In another British 

 bird, the dotterell, the female is also larger and more brightly 

 coloured than the male ; and it seems to be proved that the 

 males assist in incubation even if they do not perform it 

 entirely, for Mr. Gould tells us "that they have been shot 

 with the breast bare of feathers, caused by sitting on the 

 eggs." The small quail-like birds forming the genus Turnix 

 have also generally large and bright-coloured females, and we 

 are told by Mr. Jerdon in his Birds of India that " the natives 

 report that during the breeding season the females desert 

 their eggs and associate in flocks while the males are employed 

 in hatching the eggs." It is also an ascertained fact that the 

 females are more bold and pugnacious than the males. A 

 further confirmation of this view is to be found in the fact 

 (not hitherto noticed) that in a large majority of the cases in 

 which bright colours exist in both sexes incubation takes 

 place in a dark hole or in a dome -shaped nest. Female 

 kingfishers are often equally brilliant with the male, and they 

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