IX. 



SEXUAL SELECTION AND THE NESTING OF 

 BIRDS. 



AMONGST the various criticisms which have been 

 made on my Contribution to the Philosophy of Birds' 

 Nests and Eggs, a paper which was first read before 

 the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society in 

 1 88 1, and afterwards published in an enlarged form 

 in the History of British Birds, and again in my 

 work on Our Rarer Birds, that of the distinguished 

 American ornithologist, Mr. J. A. Allen, in The 

 Auk) is hitherto the most important. In order 

 chiefly to direct attention to this little known 

 subject, and with the idea of stimulating observation, 

 I venture herewith to reply to the most salient points 

 of Mr. Allen's criticism. 



In the first place, Mr. Allen seems to think that 

 so far as concerns such birds in which the male is 

 bright and the female dull in colour, and which 

 nidificate in an open site, the " glaring exceptions " 



