SEXUAL SELECTION IN BIRDS. 287 



whether I had really had anything at all to do with it, and if it 

 had not been there before I came. 



And now, having described my own place, I will describe the 

 Buffs'. In Lincolnshire their gathering-ground is, or was — for 

 the collectors with the guns have done their business — a "hill," or 

 at least it was called so. Could it be so termed here, I might call 

 it " the hill of Venus," for assuredly she reigns upon it — but of 

 that hereafter. But there are no hills in Holland, even if there 

 are in the fens of Lincolnshire, and this particular one — for I 

 have no doubt the word is equally applicable here or there — is, 

 if anything, a little lower than the dead level of the surrounding 

 country. It is on a narrow strip of land, where turfs, cut from 

 an adjoining trench — one of many that traverse these shore- 

 lands for the purpose of draining them — lie strewn upon the 

 grass, amidst which they have again become rooted, that the 

 gathering-place is situated. The space principally occupied by 

 the birds is oblong in shape — some ten paces long by six broad — 

 and within it the grass, though shorter, generally, than round 

 about, grows thicker and, in parts, more tuftily. Within this 

 area, amidst the turfs and grass-tufts, are as many as thirteen 

 circular depressions, about two feet across, where the grass is 

 worn away, and the bare earth appears, more especially in the 

 centre. Eleven of these are very distinctly marked, giving the 

 place its character and at once striking the eye. They are 

 stained with excrement, and feathers, as time goes on, accumu- 

 late in them, though the scantiness with which these are shed is, 

 under the circumstances, matter for wonder. It is evident, in 

 fact, that here, from season to season, the birds have stood and 

 fought ; one season— or perhaps several — would not suffice to 

 make such a series of depressions. This is the most frequented 

 portion of the tourney-ground — the lists proper, so to speak — but 

 beyond it a further area has extended itself, which is not nearly 

 so plainly marked in any way. In the later spring and summer 

 the Buffs show a tendency to stand in this adjoining territory or 

 hinterland, rather than in the more trodden part. Sometimes, 

 indeed, they keep right outside the wider limit even, but gener- 

 ally get into it before long, and the inner shrine, too, as soon as 

 they begin to fight. Of this tendency, however, I saw little or 

 nothing during this earlier visit. All the birds, at any rate, who 



