ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 61 



species, accustomed to prey on the Ptarmigan, would know very 

 well what to make of it, and the vermilion spot, once seen, would 

 instantly betray the bird. I saw nothing whilst I was in 

 Iceland to harmonize with this brilliancy, or which it could be 

 supposed to simulate. If the general coloration of the plumage, 

 therefore, is protective, and due to natural selection, it is im- 

 possible that something which violently contradicts it, and must 

 go far to discount its good effects, can have been acquired in 

 the same way. It is only during the breeding season that this 

 brilliant comb or wattle appears, so that we have here something 

 which seems obviously due to the agency of sexual selection, 

 and the very fact of its being altogether antagonistic to the 

 protective principle which has, in general, asserted itself, bears 

 evidence to the importance of the results brought about through 

 this agency. A special object has, at a special time, to be 

 achieved, and it is worth while achieving it even by the tem- 

 porary suspension, or partial relaxation, of those measures 

 which have been taken to ensure the more general object. 

 Natural selection, on this view, does all that it can to protect 

 the male bird from outside hostility, throughout the year, con- 

 sistently with allowing it sufficient facilities for recommending 

 itself to the female bird, in competition with rivals (inside 

 hostility) during a certain season of the year. 



It is now 10.30 p.m. There is a great silence and stillness, 

 and though perfectly light, so that I am writing this without a 

 candle, still there is something — a sort of deadness in nature — 

 which seems to proclaim it to be night. The sitting Eagle, at 

 any rate, seems to have taken her place for the night, whilst 

 her mate has not been visible since the last change, and is pro- 

 bably roosting somewhere in the vicinity. Each time that 

 these Eagles have come on to the nest, they have made move- 

 ments upon it, before settling down on the eggs, which I 

 have not been able satisfactorily to follow — they seem much 

 more than should be required for the turning or otherwise 

 moving the eggs. 



Besides the Gulls, as I have noted, a pair of Ravens, earlier 

 in the day, molested, or attempted to molest, one of these 

 Eagles. 



June 6th. — About 4 a.m., as I lie awake with the cold, there 



