SEXUAL SELECTION 345 



attitude. No less remarkable are the contortions of the Great 

 Bustard, or the grotesque attitude assumed by the Turkey- 

 cock and the Amhurst Pheasant. These and other instances 

 already quoted in Chapter X seem to indicate a consciousness 

 on the part of the male of his striking characteristics, and a 

 desire to overcome his mate by the display. It seems reason- 

 able enough to assume that the females are induced thereby to 

 pick out the finest and most resplendent performers to mate 

 with. When such displays are made by solitary males, it is 

 inferred that she accepts him only in the event of his pleasing 

 her. In other words, if his display is not sufficiently animated, 

 or his ornamentation is not sufficiently vivid to excite sexual 

 desire, she rejects or rather ignores him. This being so, then 

 it would follow that the peculiar characteristics of the males 

 would tend, slowly but surely, to gain in intensity. Mr. J. G. 

 Millais, in two remarkable monographs on the British Game- 

 birds and Surface-feeding Ducks, has brought together a mass 

 of material all tending to support this view of the evolution of 

 resplendent colours by the males. It is not necessary that 

 the female should have to make her selection from a crowd 

 of similarly displaying suitors, choosing the finest. 



Further support seems to be given to this hypothesis of 

 sexual selection by those singular cases wherein the females 

 are more brilliantly coloured than the males ; as in the Hemi- 

 podes. Painted Snipe and Phalaropes, for example. Here the 

 females display instead of the males ; and accordingly, we may 

 suppose that unless she is a sufficiently skilled performer she 

 will fail in exciting him to mate, and so leave no offspring. 



Of many groups no evidence is forthcoming as to the 

 methods of courtship, but some birds seem to combine other 

 means with personal display. Thus Mr. Robert Warren, in 

 the Birds of Ireland, says of the Sandwich Tern {Sterna 

 cantiaca) : " When the pairing season commences it is amusing 

 to watch the absurd antics of the males trying to attract the 

 attention of the females. At low water the Terns generally 

 assemble on a sand-bank to rest after fishing, and there the 

 males strut about among the females with an absurd air of 

 importance, their heads being thrown back and their wings 

 drooping, or almost trailing on the ground. After a time, if 

 there is no response from the females, which generally look on 



