I tj20. 



Moffat. — Colours of Birds. 



43 



battW before you with an adversary who doesn't look easy 

 to beat." 



1 beHeve this is the real message conveyed by nuptial 

 colouring, when it is confined to the male. Believing, as 

 I do, that the battles of the males are chiefly fought for 

 the possession of plots of land on which their families can 

 be reared, I do not see how the females can well do otherwise 

 in most cases than select as husbands those males that 

 possess plots of land with suitable facilities for nest building, 

 and the colour of the happy bridegroom must therefore be 

 of very secondary importance in the bride's eyes, except 

 so far as the perfection of the pattern he displays to her 

 proves that he has sustained no serious damage in any 

 of his previous fights, and is therefore likely to prove an 

 effective defender of their common rights hereafter. From 

 this point of view the perfection of an elaborate pattern 

 like that of the celebrated Argus Pheasant is, no doubt, 

 very important ; but the display of such patterns has 

 almost certainly another use than to captivate the eye of 

 the female. It is a grand advertisement to intimidate 

 rival males and warn them to keep their distance. 



I think in every instance of nuptial ornamentation it 

 will appear that the part of the plumage in which the 

 ornamentation occurs is a part brought into prominence in 

 battle. Generally the bright colours of the nuptial season 

 appear on the head, the neck, or the breast and throat — 

 just the parts that are sure to be exposed in fight. 



1 can only think of one British bird in which the 

 distinctive ornament of the male is fovmd on the wing- 

 feathers. That is the Nightjar ; and 1 have watched a 

 fight between two cock Nightjars, in the late dusk of a 

 summer night, and found that they made a practice of 

 frequently springing from the ground with their wings 

 raised high over their backs so as to show the white patches 

 on the quill feathers with remarkable plainness. 



Another case of what looks like eccentric nuptial 

 ornamentation is that of the Waterhen, who assumes, 

 when the nesting season is on, a bright scarlet garter. 

 But the Waterhen justifies this eccentricity in her style of 

 ornament by having also a mode of fighting peculiar to 



