468 THE DESOEltr OF MAN 



might be made to differ greatly through natural selection. 

 In some of the above cases, however, it is possible that the 

 beaks of the males may have been first modified in relation 

 to their contests with other males ; and that this afterward 

 led to slightly changed habits of life. 



Law of Battle. — Almost all male birds are extremely 

 pugnacious, using their beaks, wings, and legs for fighting 

 together. We see this every spring with our robins and 

 sparrows. The smallest of all birds, namely, the humming- 

 bird, is one of the most quarrelsome. Mr. Gosse" describes 

 a battle in which a pair seized hold of each otter's beaks, 

 and whirled round and round, till they almost fell to the 

 ground; and M. Montes de Oca, in speaking of another 

 genus of humming-bird, says that two males rarely meet 

 without a fierce aerial encounter: when kept in cages "their 

 fighting has mostly ended in the splitting of the tongue of 

 one of the two, which then surely dies from being unable 

 to feed." * With Waders, the males of the common water- 

 hen {Qallinula chloropus) "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 had not the observer inter- 

 fered; the female all the time looking on as a quiet spec- 

 tator.* Mr. Blyth informs me that the males of an allied 

 bird {Gallicrex cristatus) are a third larger than the females, 

 and are so pugnacious 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 hmmorrhous), 

 which "fight with great spirit." ' 



8 Quoted by Mr. Gould, "Introduction to the Trochilidse," 1861, p. 29. 



* Gould, ibid., p. 52. 



' W. Thompson, "The Natural ffistory of Ireland: Birds," volume iL 

 1850, p. 327. 



• Jerdon, "Birds of India," 1863, voL ii. p. 96. 



