A SET FIGURE 191 



we must watch the fighting of other species. In all, 

 or nearly all, birds, there is a mixture of pugnacity 

 and timidity. The former urges them to rush upon 

 the foe, the latter to turn tail and retreat, whenever 

 they are, themselves, rushed upon. Thus, in most 

 combats, there is a good deal of alternate advancing 

 and retreating, but this is no more than what one 

 might expect, and has a quite natural appearance. 

 In various species, however, the tendency is exag- 

 gerated in a greater or less degree, until, in the 

 partridge, we find it developed to a quite extra- 

 ordinary extent ; whilst there is something a sort 

 of clockwork appearance in the bird's actions, due, 

 I suppose, to the wonderful simultaneousness with 

 which they turn, and the length of time for which 

 they keep at just the same distance from one an- 

 other, with a wide gap between them which strikes 

 one as very peculiar. 



Do we not see in these varying degrees of one 

 and the same thing, commencing with what is scarce 

 noticeable, and ending in something extremely pro- 

 nounced, the passage, through habit and repetition, 

 of a rational action into a formal one ? Do we not, 

 in fact, see one kind of antic, with the cause of it ? 

 A natural tendency has led to a certain act being so 

 frequently performed that it has become, at last, a 

 sort of set figure that can no longer be shaken off. 

 As, in the case of the partridge, this figure is gone 

 through over and over again, sometimes for an hour 

 or more together, I believe that it will, some day, 

 either quite take the place of fighting, with this spe- 

 cies, or become a thing distinct and apart from it; so 

 that its original meaning being no longer recognisable, 



M 



