218 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL MIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIV. 



Mr. Pocock, in the Avicultural Magazine, has given us a most 

 graphic account of the display of the Peacock-Pheasant which agrees 

 well with what I have seen shown by wild birds. 



On one occasion when I was lying on the ground by a tiny 

 forest stream which rippled and fell in pigmy cascades over boulders 

 and mossy banks, a pair of Peacock-Pheasants Avandered out of the 

 dense undergrowth into a tiny open space just in front of where I was 

 lying. For a few minutes they scratched about for insects and then 

 without a moment's warning the cock-bird began to display to the 

 hen. At first he confined his attentions to running round her with 

 tail partially extended and slightly raised and both wings drooping 

 and spread. In a minute or two, however, he ceased to run round, 

 and sank slowly to the ground until his breast rested on it. His 

 tail and wings were then raised until the three were fully spread in 

 the manner of a fan, the tips of the inner secondaries of the wings 

 almost meeting above and in front of the tail, whilst the shoulders 

 were brought down to the ground. The head w^as then withdrawn 

 momentarily into the soft mass of feathers, but immediately pro- 

 truded again on the hen moving. 



At first the latter, the hen, took little if any notice of the cock 

 bird's prancings and posturings, but after a minute or tw^o, she 

 became decidedly interested, and actually began herself to display in 

 response, though her display w^as not as full as that of the cock, this 

 however may have been because he did not give her time to com- 

 plete it. 



This display of the hen's is especially interesting and it probably 

 accounts for the unusually small amount of difference in the plumage 

 of the two sexes. 



As Pocock has so pithily expressed it : 



" Birds do not display because they are decorated, but are 

 " decorated because they display." 



Decorative effects in birds, whether consisting of brilliancy in 

 colour or excessive growth in any portion of the plumage, such as 

 the possession of crests, lengthened plumes in tails, Avings, etc., are 

 the result of superabundant energy. 



This extreme vitality not being necessary to the continuation of 

 life in its normal condition is therefore expended in the creation of 

 abnormal features which depend in the main on local muscular 

 activities. 



Nor must we forget that quiescent muscular display may be as 

 energetic as movement, for great tension may require as much 

 muscular and nerve effort as great vibration. Thus we have in 

 some birds a display of expanded plumage, as in the FolyiDlectron, 

 whilst in others, our English Warblers for instance, energy is 

 usually shown by intense rapidity of wing motion. 



In those species of birds in which the female is the dominant 



