S60 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



blind and deaf, but less so than the capercailzie: hence bird after 

 bird may be shot on the same spot, or even caught by the hand. 

 After performing these antics the males begin to fight: and the 

 same black-cock, in order to prove his strength over several an- 

 tagonists, will visit in the course of one morning several Balz- 

 places, which remain the same during successive years." 



The peacock with his long train appears more like a dandy than 

 a warrior, but he sometimes engages in fierce contests: the Rev. 

 W. Darwin Fox informs me that at some little distance from Ches- 

 ter two peacocks became so excited whilst fighting, that they flew 

 over the whole city, still engaged, until ttey alighted on the top 

 of St. John's tower. 



The spur, in those gallinaceous birds which are thus provided, 

 is generally single; but Polyplectron (see fig. 51, p. 391) has two 

 or more on each leg; and one of the Blood-pheasants (Ithaginis 

 cruentus) has been seen with five spurs. The spurs are generally 

 confined to the male, being represented by mere knobs or rudi- 

 ments in the female; but the females of the Java peacock (Pavo 

 muticus) and, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, of the small fire- 

 backed pheasant (Euplocamus erythropthalmus) possess spurs. 

 In Galloperdix it is usual for the males to have two spurs, and for 

 the females to have only one on each leg.^'' Hence spurs may 

 be considered as a masculine structure, which has been occasion- 

 ally more or less transferred to the females. Like most other sec- 

 ondary sexual characters, the spurs are highly variable, both in 

 number and development, in the same species. 



Various birds have spurs on their wings. But the Egyptian 

 goose (Chenalopex segyptiacus) has only "bare obtuse knobs," 

 and these probably show us the first steps by which true spurs 

 have been developed in other species. In the spur-winged goose, 

 Plectropterus gambensis, the males have much larger spurs than 

 the females; and they use them, as I am informed by Mr. Bartlett, 

 in fighting together, so that, in this case, the wing-spurs serve 

 as sexual weapons; but according to Livingstone, they are chiefly 

 used in the defense of the young. The Palamedea (fig. 38) is 

 armed with a pair of spurs on each wing; and these are such for- 

 midable weapons, that a single blow has been known to drive a 

 dog howling away. But it does not appear that the spurs in this 

 case, or in that of some of the spur-winged rails are larger 

 in the male than in the female." In certain plovers, 



" Brehm, 'Illust. Thierleben,' 1867, B. iv. s. 351. Some of the foreg-oing 

 statements are taken from L. Lloyd, 'The Game Birds of Sweden,' &c., 

 1S67, p. 79. 



« Jerdon, 'Birds of India: on Ithaginis," vol. iii. p. 523; on Gallo- 

 perdix, p. 541. 



" I'or the Egyptian g-oose, see Macgillivray, 'British Birds,' vol. iv. 

 p. C39. For Plectropterus, 'Livingstone's Travels,' p. 254. For Pala- 



