180 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Though, as I say, the hens seem hard to win, yet they look 

 quite conscious of being courted, and the fact that, as a resultant 

 of this, pairing does, from time to time, take place, as well as 

 their jealousy of one another, is proof that they are not in- 

 different, although they may be nice. That they should be nice 

 does not appear to me to speak against, but rather for, the 

 hypothesis of natural selection, for as the males became all 

 more attractive, the hens should become more critical — the one 

 factor could not operate without the other. So, too, the hens 

 appear to be won by courting, and not by fighting. This was so 

 in the one case of coition observed by me this morning and 

 yesterday, for though, as I say, I did not happen to have my 

 eyes on those particular pairs, rather than others, just before it, 

 yet fighting even to a moderate extent must certainly, on so 

 confined a space, have caught my attention. Moreover, on the 

 whole, there is but little fighting amongst the cocks — at any 

 rate, it is not nearly so important a feature as seems to be 

 generally imagined. For the most part, the birds threaten 

 merely, and, even when they do close, it is but seldom that one 

 hears the loud flaps and buffets with the wings, that give evi- 

 dence of any considerable fight, nor do they last for any time 

 when one does hear them. 



Though the cocks court the hens in a very business-like 

 manner, and, as one may say, patiently, yet they sometimes lose 

 patience, and make either a little run or a little spring at them. 

 I have seen one instance of the former and two of the latter, but 

 not once was the attempted ravishment, as it seemed to be, 

 successful. In the first instance, the hen ran, and, in the two 

 last, she flew away. 



The monosyllabic, barking cry of the hen — like that of the 

 hen Capercailzie, but much less guttural — was a good deal in 

 evidence this morning. 



May 8th. — Left the cottage at about 2, and was seated well 

 before 3.30, at which time everything was still as death. In ten 

 minutes or a quarter of an hour, the first notes of the cocks were 

 heard, and for a long time, as far as I could see or hear, they 

 were on the place by themselves, without any hen. They would 

 either stand, for some time, more or less quiet, or else whirbling ; 

 or, with a little jerk upwards, and flap of the wings, they would 



