DISPLAY BY THE MALE. 397 



Sufficient facts have now been given to show with what care 

 male birds display their various charms, and this they do with 

 the utmost skill. Whilst preening their feathers, they have 

 frequent opportunities for admiring themselves, and of studying 

 how best to exhibit their beauty. But as all the males of the 

 same species display themselves in exactly the same manner, it 

 appears that actions, at first perhaps intentional, have become 

 instinctive. If so, we ought not to accuse birds of conscious 

 vanity; yet when we see a peacock strutting about, with ex- 

 panded and quivering tail-feathers, he seems the very emblem 

 of pride and vanity. 



The various ornaments possessed by the males are certainly 

 of the highest importance to them, for in some cases they have 

 been acquired at the expense of greatly impeded powers of flight 

 or of running. The African night-jar (Cosmetornis), which dur- 

 ing the pairing-season has one of its primary wing-feathers de- 

 veloped into a streamer of very great length, is thereby much 

 retarded in its flight, although at other times remarkable for its 

 swiftness. The "unwieldy size" of the secondary wing-feathers 

 of the male Argus pheasant are said "almost entirely to deprive 

 "the bird of flight." The fine plumes of male birds of paradise 

 trouble them during a high wind. The extremely long tail- 

 feathers of the male widow-birds (Vidua) of Southern Africa 

 render "their fiight heavy;" but as soon as these are cast off 

 they fly as well as the females. As birds always breed when 

 food is abundant, the males probably do not suffer much in- 

 convenience in searching for food from their impeded powers 

 of movement; but there can hardly be a doubt that they must 

 be much more liable to be struck down by birds of prey. Nor 

 can we doubt that the long train of the peacock and the long 

 tail and wing-feathers of the Argus pheasant must render them 

 an easier prey to any prowling tiger-cat, than would otherwise 

 be the case. Even the bright colors of many male birds cannot 

 fail to make them conspicuous to their enemies of all kinds. 

 Hence, as Mr. Gould has remarked, it probably is that such 

 birds are generally of a shy disposition, as if conscious that their 

 beauty was a source of danger, and are much more diflicult to 

 discover or approach, than the somber colored and compara- 

 tively tame females, or than the young and as yet unadorned 

 males."' • 



»3 On the Cosmetornis, see Livingstone's 'Expedition to the Zam- 

 besi,' 1865, p. 96. On the Argus pheasant, Jardlne's 'Nat. Hist. Lib.; 

 Birds,' vol. xiv. p. 167. On Birds of Paradise, Lesson, quoted by Brehm, 

 'Thierleben,' B. ill. o. 325. On the widow-bird, Barrow's 'Travels in 

 Africa,' vol. i. p. 243, and 'Ibis,' vol. iii. 1861, p. 133. Mr. Gould, on the 

 shyness of male birds, 'Handbook to Birds of Australia,' vol. i. 1865, 

 pp. 210, 457. 



