250 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



purpose, having attained which she left ; but had it been in- 

 different to her which male bird she received, she need not have 

 gone further than the first. The fact that she did shows that 

 the act which she sought was recommended to her, in varying 

 degrees, through the varying personal cynation of different males, 

 and as each one elaborately displayed the same points in his 

 plumage, before her, we must assume these — that is to say, the 

 sum total of each bird's appearance — to have been the deter- 

 minants of her choice. It is strange, I think, that this should 

 ever have been thought strange. 



Very few hens, as far as I could see, came to this assembly- 

 ground, though so numerously attended by the males. I do not, 

 in fact, remember seeing more than two together, and these once 

 fought, though in a minor degree. The meetings would appear 

 to be of the males, the hens attending them, merely from time 

 to time, which is what the Beeves do also, so that, in either case, 

 the supposed indifferent hen comes for a certain definite pur- 

 pose, thus taking the initiative quite as much as the male.* 

 Possibly the hens attend various meetings, but of the male 

 birds doing this, in order to fight at each (as has been stated)* 

 I have seen no evidence, either here or in Sweden, for the 

 number is early made up, and then remains the same, or nearly 

 so, till t^e assembly disperses. Fighting, moreover, to go by 

 what I have as yet seen, is a very secondary matter. The males 

 do not come to fight, but to court the females, on whose attend- 

 ance they wait. Fighting is merely incidental, and there would 

 seem to be far less of it than is generally supposed. 



I have remarked on the excited leaps into the air, from time 

 to time, of the males, with short flights from one part of the 

 ground to another. It is difficult to look upon these as in the 

 nature of a challenge to rival males, or as proceeding from 

 martial ardour. They were excited, in a special degree, by the 

 later arrival of a single hen, and would seem to spring primarily 

 from ordinary sexual emotion, though this is, no doubt, asso- 

 ciated with those of jealousy and rivalry. They are generalized 

 rather than specialized actions, and neither they, nor the far 



* A Blackcock meeting-place is, in fact, a sort of Yashawari, where the 

 males stand, each in his place, and to which the hens come to walk about and 

 choose from amongst them. 



