SEXUAL SELECTION IN BIBDS. 289 



to-day bad come from fighting in the lists. Though Ruffs fight 

 so, yet they do not seem to knock out many feathers, and the 

 opinion held here is that they do each other no harm. 



April 16th. — Getting up early — though not early enough — I 

 was on the shore-lands, as I may call these parts in contra- 

 distinction to field and pasture, before seven, and soon saw, 

 through the glasses, that the Ruffs were foregathering ; but 

 coming nearer, inconsiderately, than I had intended to do, a 

 party of them went up. Others, however, remained, but, though 

 I came up carefully, behind my fortifications, first on my hands 

 and knees, and then crawling flat, these, too, took alarm, so that 

 when I at last got into place no more remained. I had not 

 waited there long, however, before three came down into the 

 tourney-ground, where, after a very little fighting, they sat 

 quietly. This state of things continued, nor was the peace 

 interrupted except by a few short and several abortive campaigns. 

 In the first, two who sat near each other rose, as by a mutual 

 impulse, and made a spar or two, but, in a moment, sank down 

 again, and sat, dozing, side by side, in the most amicable man- 

 ner. Another two, before long, flew in, and afterwards one, 

 their arrival, in each case, making that stir and excitement 

 which I had noted last year ; but not, I think, leading to real 

 fighting — or, at any rate, in but a slight degree. Of real fighting 

 there has been, up to the present — it is now eight o'clock — very 

 little. The birds — all three, or five, or six of them — have sat, 

 almost the whole time, basking in the sun — for it is a splendid 

 sunshine day, though the air is bracing, to say the least of it — 

 or else stood preening their feathers. At longish, rather than 

 short, intervals a sudden impulse would seem to seize a bird, 

 and rising, for no apparent cause, he would erect his feathers, 

 and turn to this or that side, but meeting with no response — no 

 other bird being close to him — would sink down, and bask again. 

 Or two, separated by but a foot or so, would rise in the same 

 way, and do the same things, yet not fight, but only threaten, 

 before again subsiding, or else there would be a very short, 

 though sufficiently violent, sparring-match. Otherwise — when 

 not fighting, that is to say, or threatening to fight — they were 

 most sociable ; and, indeed, the very contentions of these birds 

 may almost be said to be a part of their sociability. It is most 



