THE WAGTAILS 241 



as are the Paradiseidce. Taxidermists, the world over, would vie with 

 one another in representing, stiffly and wrongly, the splendid 

 " descent " of the male, the sight would become familiar in museums 

 and shop-museum windows, and excessively rare out of doors. Such 

 thoughts have often occurred to me, whilst watching the male even of 

 our common pied-wagtail making, after his own somewhat similar 

 down-coming, proud, almost fierce little runs beside the female, or 

 spreading out a wing before her in very much the same way as does 

 the cock pheasant. 1 He has certainly seemed to me to make the best 

 of himself on such occasions, and I believe that an extended study of 

 the courting activities of all birds, large or small, drawing the 

 evidence from as wide a field as possible, and paying particular 

 attention to those cases where the observer has been most favoured, 

 would establish the fact that decoration and the effective display of 

 it stand in exactly the same relation to one another as do the powers 

 of vocal utterance and song. The fact that the latter is an unknown 

 quantity till the bird does actually sing, whilst the plumage can be 

 seen though it is not specially displayed, is an accidental, rather than 

 an essential, distinction, and one, moreover, which does not, in all 

 cases, exist. The erection of a cockatoo or other bird's crest, the 

 careful display of the light under surface of the wings by the male 

 redshanks and many other birds, and the rolling of, at least, one species 

 of parrot, on its back, apparently in order to display a rich hyacinthine 

 abdomen (which I have seen), are examples of this. If some male 

 birds are better and more constant displayers of their plumage than 

 others of the same species, so, too, some are better singers, and sing 

 more, and, in each case, much will depend upon the season and the 

 mood. Song indeed has, in many cases of this I think there can be 

 no doubt become a pleasure in itself, whereas I do not know of any 



1 Mr. Kirkmau has seen still more elaborate displays, and gives the following account of 

 one : " The cock kept moving about a yard off the hen, in front of her, bowing his head 

 repeatedly, then, approaching, he spread his tail, deflecting it, and displaying to the full the 

 striking contrast between the deep black and the white. With his wings spread, his body 

 pressed upon the ground, inclined to one side, and all tense with emotion, he dragged himself 

 slowly toward the hen." 



