SEXUAL SELECTION IN BIBDS. 163 



with the same Buff, not the brown one this time, but with that 

 very other one — he of the blue-black mane and white, flowing 

 head-plumes — which I saw chosen yesterday by a certain Eeeve, 

 who came up to him and touched him on the head with her bill. 

 Whether it is this same Eeeve, now, I cannot say, since Beeves, 

 unfortunately, are not to be distinguished as are the Buffs. On 

 the latter point there is no doubt whatever. There is but one 

 other bird that at all resembles this one, and though the re- 

 semblance is so close that they must, I think, be brothers, yet 

 they are sufficiently distinguished by the different colours of 

 their bills (one red, the other black), and the shade of chestnut, 

 as against cream, in the head-plumage of one of them. Thus the 

 two birds which I have first seen pair have certainly been singled 

 out, and that more than once, by one or more Beeves, and, as 

 far as I have been able to see — and I think had it been so I must 

 have seen — they certainly have not owed their good fortune 

 either to fighting or superior vigour of any kind. They are, 

 however — as to this there could hardly be two opinions — two of 

 the finest and handsomest birds on the ground. 



The scene now is most interesting and quite beyond descrip- 

 tion. Birds dart like lightning over the ground, turn, crouch, 

 dart again, ruffle about each demure-looking, unperturbed little 

 attraction, spring at each other, and then, as though earth were 

 inadequate as a medium of emotional expression, rise into the 

 air and dart round overhead, on the wing. The air resounds 

 with the frequent dull shock of bodies, and the violent whirring 

 of wings ; it is all motion, all energy, at the very fever-point of 

 excitement, and then, all at once, a sudden cessation, almost a 

 sudden death — only the feathers of each bird's back to be seen, 

 or the tops of their head-gear, or ruff, or tail-feathers waving, 

 here and there, in the wind, as they lie in tense, rigid immobility, 

 like so many little bows of Ulysses, bent by themselves and 

 ready, each moment, to spring back. A wonderful drama, truly, 

 of bird-life, thus unfolding itself before me, in the early, bright, 

 but bitterly cold morning, whilst learned ornithologists all over 

 Europe lie sleeping in their pleasant beds ! But they will come 

 down all the fresher to breakfast, and perhaps issue bulls against 

 sexual selection from their studies. In the midst of it all, but after 

 a considerable interval — for it is long before things become quieter 



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