THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 791.— May, 1907 



OBSERVATIONS TENDING to THROW LIGHT on the 

 QUESTION of SEXUAL SELECTION in BIRDS, IN- 

 CLUDING a DAY-TO-DAY DIARY on the BREEDING 

 HABITS of the RUFF {MACHETES PUGNAX). 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from p. 65.) 



April 25th. — To bed in my clothes — the right way for a right 

 field naturalist — and, rising about 2.30, am on the spot an hour 

 afterwards. Some birds went up in the darkness, but so near 

 the hut, as it seemed, that I am not quite sure if they were the 

 Ruffs or not. If they were they must have come back almost 

 directly, for, as soon as I had safety-pinned my plaid round the 

 sacking, and got into the camera obscura, I could make out some 

 of their darker figures amidst the surrounding darkness, and, as 

 it grew, imperceptibly, lighter, these began to move swiftly about 

 over the surface of the ground, looking like enlarged rats in the 

 first dim twilight of early morning. Then suddenly they would 

 disappear, changing into pieces of cut turf lying here and there 

 about the land, amidst a number of which the assembly-ground 

 is situated. From this I knew that even at this early hour the 

 birds were making excited runs and rushes at one another, 

 between the intervals of which spasmodic energy they lay 

 crouched and motionless on the ground, in a sort of sexual 

 frenzy. On account of the darkness, and these disappearances, 

 as, also, later, through the numbers and commotion, it was 



difficult to count the birds, but, even before new arrivals appeared 

 Zool. 4th »er. vol. XI., May, 1907. o 



