285 



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. 219.) 



April 7th, 1906. — The Ruffs are now here — so, at least, the 

 inhabitants tell me — and fighting should begin about the middle 

 of April. I have not yet seen any, and the place where they 

 meet is, as yet, quite tenantless. Now, therefore, is the time for 

 preparation. By the time it begins to be frequented, let me have 

 something like a good observatory. Fired with this idea, I come 

 down with a spade, and, giving myself up to unmitigated toil, 

 have converted already my little last-year's rampart of turfs, 

 which was still standing, into a sort of round turf-hut, minus a 

 roof, in a hole inside which I can sit and look through a loop- 

 hole, commanding a splendid view of the Zefc-place, the distance 

 to the middle of which is only twenty-four of my paces — about 

 sixty feet. This, when roofed over in some way or other — I 

 hardly know how — will be perfectly dark inside, so that I must 

 be invisible to the birds, as I sit, comfortably, with my face at 

 the embrasure, on the edge of which the glasses of intellect (as 

 against that needless weapon, the gun) can rest ; just as I watched 

 them before, except that it will be comfort — luxury almost — 

 instead of a very great want of it, and an impossibility, so far as 

 I can see, of being observed myself, or even suspected. I doubt 

 if Ruffs will ever have been provided for like this, or even last 

 year, but then, in June and July, the fighting was on the wane, 

 the pairing, as I imagine, over ;* whereas now, in the latter half 



* Though I watched the birds, on and off, during a month, from June 

 11th, I never once saw them pair, though the male seemed, at least, as excited 

 as now by the presence of the Reeve. This is evidence of the power exercised 

 by the latter, in addition to that which, in the course of this paper, I shall 

 bring forward. 



