on the Display of the cock Ostrich. 289


tlieir ornamental imperfections. For a variety of reasons this

hypothesis has only met with the partial approbation of naturalists.

For although there is a good deal to be said in its favour, there

are also many difficulties in the way of its acceptance. One

difficulty has been already pointed out, namely the apparent

indifference hens evince towards displaying cocks; I say

“apparent” because they may, unknown to us, be taking stock

all the time of the beauty-points of their suitors. Nevertheless

it must be admitted that they do not watch them with the

attentive air they show towards other things that attract their

notice. Another difficulty in this: birds, as well as mammals,

have their likes and dislikes in the matter of mates. A cock will

take to one individual lieu and not to another, or vice versa.

That, I am sure, is well known ; but, I believe, it is no overstate¬

ment to say that the reason for the preference is never apparent

to us. At all events it has never been so to me ; and so far as I

am aware no direct observations have been made which show or

even tend to show that cock birds chosen as mates are more

beautiful than those that are rejected.


Again, cock birds when in full feather will not uncommonly

go through all the display characteristic of their species when

hens are nowhere at hand- Sometimes they display to one

another; sometimes to nothing at all. I have seen a Peacock in

full show for the benefit apparently of half-a-dozen Sparrows

feeding from a trough ; and I have no reason to doubt the

veracity of a friend who told me he had witnessed such a display

before an old felt hat on the ground.


Some birds also, in which the two sexes are alike, behave

at the breeding season in a manner that would be called display¬

ing if there was any special ornamentation to show. For

instance Sea Gulls and Cockatoos bow and curtsey, and pose in

other eccentric ways towards one another. Albatrosses do the

same ; and many more examples could be cited.


Now the facts that ornamented cock birds show off in the

absence of hens and that the unadorned individuals also have

the instinct to pose are not inexplicable on Darwin’s hypothesis;

but they suggest very forcibly that posing at the breeding season

preceded, in an evolutionary sense, the development of ornamen-



