THE NATURAL 



feathers, getting themselves admired and desired. From 

 time to time a female admits that she is moved, a couple 

 is formed. But the tetras, heather-cocks of North 

 America, have still more curious customs. Their fights 

 have become exactly what they have with us, that is, 

 dances. It is no longer the tourney, it is the tour-de- 

 valse. What completes the proof that these parades are 

 a survival, a transformation, is that the males, being 

 amused by them, perform them not only before but after 

 coupling. They even practice them for diversion while 

 the females are sitting on the eggs, absorbed in maternal 

 duty. Travellers thus describe the tetras' dance (Milton 

 and Cheaddle, "Atlantic to Pacific," p. 171 of the French 

 translation) : "They gather, twenty or thirty in a chosen 

 place, and begin to dance like mad. Opening their 

 wings, they draw together their feet, like men doing the 

 danse du sac. Then they advance toward each other, do 

 a waltz turn, pass to a second partner, and so on. This 

 contre-danse of prairie chickens is very amusing. They 

 become so absorbed in it that one can approach quite 

 near." 



Birds of Australia and New Guinea x make love with a 

 charming ceremony. To attract his mistress the male 

 makes a veritable country-house, or, if he is less skilful, 

 a rustic bower of greenery. He plants rushes, green 

 sprigs, for he is small, about the size of a blackbird; 

 he bends them into a vault, often a metre long. He 

 strews the floor with leaves, flowers, red fruits, white 



1 One has the unpronounceable name, savants designating it by 

 the jumble of letters: Ptilinorhynches. The other is called the 



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