LAW OP BATTLE. 



357 



"when pairing, fight violently for the females: they stand nearly 

 "upright in the water and strike with their feet." Two were seen 

 to be thus engaged for half an hour, until one got hold of the head 

 of the other, which would have been killed, hacJ not the observer 

 interfered; the female all the time looking on as a quiet spectator.' 

 Mr. Blyth informs me that the males of an allied bird (Gallicrex 

 cristatus) are a third larger than the females, and are so pug- 



i/mUi 



Fig. 37. The Ruff or Machetes pugnax (from Brehm's 'Thierleben'). 



nacious during the breeding-season, that they are kept by the 

 natives of Eastern Bengal for the sake of fighting. Various other 

 birds are kept in India for the same purpose, for instance, the 

 bulbuls (Pycnonotus hsemorrhous) which "fight with great 

 "spirit."' 



The polygamous ruff (Machetes pugnax, fig. 37) is notorious for 

 his extreme pugnacity; and in the spring, the males, which are 

 considerably larger than the females, congregate day after day at 

 a particular spot, where the females propose to lay their eggs. 

 The fowlers discover these spots by the turf being trampled some- 

 what bare. Here they fight very much like gamecocks, seizing 

 each other with their beaks and striking with their wings. The 



= W. Thompson, 'Nat. Hist of Ire!a.nd: Bird.-j 

 'Jercion, 'Birds of India,' IS' .3, vol. ii. p. 96. 

 24 



vol. ii. 1850, p. 327. 



