30 THE GROUSE SUBFAMILY 



At the approach of the first female hostilities cease, and the 

 males begin a sort of dance, leaping and fluttering into the air several 

 feet. Each " dances " furiously, uttering the while a hoarse cry, each 

 trying, it would seem, to drown the voice of his neighbours. In the 

 intervals of such battles a curious call is commonly emitted, which is 

 likened to that of a cat on the housetops, but hoarser. 



Sooner or later, however, the successful males get together a 

 harem, and depart each to his own ground. But until this takes place, 

 the " lek " of the morning is repeated again in the evening, but with 

 less spirit. 



A curious fact, to which attention was first called by Naumann, 

 and among British ornithologists, I believe, by my friend Mr. Abel 

 Chapman 1 Naumann's observations having escaped notice in 

 this country - - is that in October blackcock display a sort of 

 revival of the amatory instincts. " On wet foggy mornings in 

 particular," he remarks, "one hears the old blackcocks crooning, 

 bubbling, and sneezing as excitedly as on a fine morning in spring. 

 With a glass I have watched one surrounded by his harem, strutting 

 round some bare little 'knowe,' in fullest display, with neck 

 swollen, tail expanded erect, and wings trailing truly a remarkable 

 spectacle in October. Whether it is a chronological miscalculation, 

 or arises from a specific cause, the origin of which is lost in the mists 

 of a remote past, the instinct is certainly conspicuous, and for want 

 of a better name I will coin the word ' pseudo-erotism ' to designate 

 it. The character is not confined to black-game, for grouse con- 

 spicuously, and golden plover to a certain degree, display pseudo- 

 erotic instincts." To these Mr. Millais adds the capercaillie. But 

 these unseasonable displays lack the fire of the spring contests, when 

 rivals occasionally fight to the death, at any rate in the case of 

 capercaillie. 



Neither with the red-grouse nor with the ptarmigan do we meet 

 with the same intensity of emotion displayed by the capercaillie and 



1 Bird-life of the Borders, p. 208. 



