220 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



one may say, rudimentary manner, but I catch the characteristic 

 though subdued motion with the tail." This is very interesting, 

 for my experience has been that the indifference of the hens is 

 one of the outstanding features of their spring behaviour. The 

 only time that the female appeared to take any interest in the 

 proceedings was when she ran forward as described in d, and 

 sat down in the spot on which the mate had just displayed, but 

 even then I never saw her assume any of the postures ascribed 

 to the male. Presumably Mr. Selous relied only on behaviour 

 in discriminating between the sexes, for he remarks elsewhere 

 that " in field observation it is impossible to distinguish the one 

 sex from the other." If his discrimination is correct (and Mr. 

 Selous will pardon any implied doubt), his record is of much 

 interest. It is, however, remarkable that the female should 

 share in the actions described in the latter part of his note, 

 which originally, if not now, must have been due merely to the 

 male bird's physical condition. 



It is needless to say that the actions that I have recorded 

 did not take place with any regularity, and only to a certain 

 extent with any sequence. B and c 1 occurred independently 

 over and over again, although they were frequently combined ; 

 c 2 was nearly always preceded by c 1, and d was invariably 

 preceded by c 1. In order to make the development of the court- 

 ship more clear, I append an analysis made from my field notes 

 (see p. 221). 



This analysis requires a word or two of explanation. The 

 figures can only be approximate, and refer of course to the 

 number of performances in each case, not to the number of 

 birds seen. Up to five the actual number is given : six to twelve 

 is marked " few," and over twelve as " many." I first observed 

 the birds carefully on February 24th. Two males were posturing 

 as c 1 in a stubble field. One four times picked up straws or 

 dry rootlets, and tossed them aside. Afterwards I observed this 

 gathering of straws on March 6th, 12th and 18th, though the 

 birds were at all times accustomed to peck at pebbles, as noted 

 under B. 



On February 27th, and March 1st and 2nd, the columns are 

 almost empty. The reason is that on these days I tried to carry 

 out observations at daybreak, and found that at that time there 



