26 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



full "give him his coppers, &c." To produce the sound, the 

 bird lowers its head a little, and the throat is swelled, and 

 reduced, and again swelled, on the bellows principle of alternate 

 inflation and exhaustion, as I suppose. This gives it a curious 

 undulatory appearance. When the fierce "tchu-whai" note is 

 uttered — that is to say, just before it is — the Blackcock rears up 

 with a little jerk, and gives a menacing flap— or it has that 

 appearance — with its wings. Then comes the note, as does the 

 trumpet of the Pheasant or the crow of the Cock. As the wings 

 are flapped, their white under surface is revealed. 



A hen also flew into a tree, equally near, and another into 

 one not much farther off. Birds were all about, but their 

 business of the morning had been murdered by that shot, and 

 so had my observations. One cock came down, and jumped 

 about a little by himself — a fly and then a spring or two — 

 and this was the nearest approach to the " war-dance " that 

 there was. 



That I have come early seems evident. Just as I have to 

 go, perhaps, things may be in full swing. Still I shall have 

 seen the early stages, and in studying these nuptial activities, 

 with a view to throwing light on their meaning and origin, this 

 is important. Nothing that I have yet seen leads me to suppose 

 that the courtship and pairing of the Blackcock differs, materi- 

 ally, from that of the Buff, In this stage, indeed, I can say 

 little, or nothing, in regard to any selection that may be exercised 

 by the hen, but she has at least shown no signs of that passive 

 surrender which naturalists who are opposed to the doctrine of 

 sexual selection talk about. The fact that the cock, whatever 

 he may do hereafter, is, at present, courting the hen after the 

 ordinary manner of our own and other Pheasants, and not with 

 that extraordinary dancing, or rather leaping, pantomime which, 

 later, he seems to develop, is important, for a doubt is thereby 

 raised whether he employs it for strictly courting purposes at 

 all. If not, then, whatever he does employ it for, the question 

 of sexual selection is not affected by it — except indirectly, and, 

 in that way, perhaps, most importantly. In courting the hen, 

 noiv, the male Blackcock comes close up to, and walks about 

 her, precisely as the Pheasant does. On that occasion when I 

 saw the " dance " performed, about the middle of May, in 



