MISPLACED GENEROSITY 235 



cock Amherst Pheasant, and even a Drongo-Shrike, 

 the sworn enemy of Crows. Here there is a case 

 of sympathy aroused by colour, but as in the above 

 case, no proof of perception of anything but light 

 and dark shades. 



The old cock-fighters used to object to a hen- 

 feathered cock in the pit, owing to the fact that 

 the opponent of such a bird was likely to mistake 

 it for a hen, and so altow it an advantage while 

 courting it ; this might argue a perception of colour 

 on the part of the Fowls, as the distinctive orna- 

 ments of the cock — large comb, long hackles and 

 sickles — were shorn before the fight, so that only 

 the colour would be left to differentiate between 

 the sexes. But it must be remembered that the 

 pattern of cocks and hens is also generally very 

 diflEerent, the upper and under surfaces of the 

 former sex presenting marked differences in all 

 except uniformly coloured varieties, which were 

 rather rare in the pit game-fowl. 



The preying relations of birds to warningly 

 coloured insects, to which I devoted much attention 

 in a long series of experiments made during my 

 residence in India, and published in the Journal 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, showed, in my 

 opinion, distinct colour-perceptions in the species 

 I employed for experiment, since these generally 

 preferred more plainly coloured butterflies to the 

 " warningly coloured " Danaids (Danais chrysippus, 

 genutia, and limniace, and Euplma core), and the 

 still more striking " warningly coloured " white 



