254 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



though effective enough for us, she does not appreciate. It 

 exhibits something, indeed, but that something has not grown 

 up along the lines of her feminine admiration, and if she con- 

 cerns herself with it at all, it is only, as I conjecture, with some 

 ulterior motive. Thus, this morning, whilst two cocks were at 

 blows, a hen, in all probability the subject of their rivalry, ran 

 in between them (as I have seen the female Redshanks or 

 Kentish Plover do), and appeared to offer one her assistance. 

 But if so — and the motive is otherwise obscure — this was pro- 

 bably only because she was partial to the bird she endeavoured 

 to help. Indeed, had the fighting in itself interested her, she 

 would not have endeavoured to put a stop to it, any more than 

 to the legitimate nuptial display, which I have not yet seen any 

 hen do. 



Though, as I have said, the actual fighting of these Black- 

 cocks does not amount to much, and in point of duration is 

 nothing to that of a pair of male Coots or Redshanks, yet it 

 cannot be denied that the birds' thoughts seem full of it — that 

 their spirit, at any rate, is martial in a high degree. Whilst 

 waiting for the hens, one or other of them will constantly run 

 over — often quite a long distance — to where another is standing, 

 which other will then advance to meet him, and the two will 

 stand threateningly, front to front, or walk pompously, side by 

 side, at a wary distance, and then come springs into the air, 

 with the angry challenging note that accompanies each — in fact, 

 there is a constant high militant bearing, a parade, as it were, of 

 readiness, an eager offence-seeking spirit, that seems to say, 

 " I am for you, sir," or " I do bite my thumb at you, sir." But 

 what I say is that, whilst all this is going on, a pair of humble 

 Tits would be fiercely fighting, perhaps even to the death. Some 

 part of the spirit of display, merely, seems to have passed from 

 its proper sphere of courtship, and to clog what should here be 

 deeds. True it is that the springs are sometimes accompanied 

 (though not as yet very frequently) with sparring, pecking, and 

 buffeting with the wings. Nothing could be more vigorous than 

 all this, whilst it lasts, but it lasts, as a rule, for such a very 

 short period of time, whilst for once that even this comes of it, 

 a dozen times, perhaps, or more, nothing does — it begins and 

 ends in inflation, as though that dear bladder were too precious 



