48 



llic Iris/i Natural isf. 



JNIay, 



hole-nesting species, and that these invasions, in whatever 

 way begun, nearly always end in the ejection of the 

 Redstarts. Then 1 turn to the chapter on the Pied 

 Flycatcher in the same work — written by Miss Turner — 

 and from her account (vol. ii., p. 275) I gather that among 

 the birds which expel the Pied Flycatcher from its nest- 

 hole even the Redstart has sometimes hgured. So, perhaps, 

 after all, the exceptions are helping to prove the rule. 

 At any rate, the two species whose females don't sport the 

 bright plumage of their husbands enjoy a considerable 

 want of success in their efforts at raising families. The 

 bright-coloured husbands, as against one another, are known 

 to be very combative little birds — a trait that fully 

 harmonises with my contention that all bright nuptial 

 tints have a more or less martial significance. 



A remarkable instance of the rule that nuptial colours 

 are intimidatory is found, I think, in the Puffin. This 

 bird is distinguished all through the nesting season by its 

 enormously large and brilliantly coloured beak — a beak that 

 has been described as " reminding one somewhat strongly 

 of the highly-coloured pasteboard noses of preposterous 

 shape and dimensions which at some seasons decorate the 

 windows of toy-shops." Nobody who has tried (successfully 

 or otherwise) to deprive a sitting bird of her solitary egg 

 is unaware of the very powerful use which the Pulhn, on 

 all such occasions, makes of its painted " toy." When the 

 nesting season is over the beak loses its enormous size and 

 remarkable brightness by shedding some outer plates, which 

 appear to have been assumed as barbaric " war-paint " — 

 of course by both sexes, as the egg is laid in a burrow. 

 This enlarged and brightly-painted beak is the only nuptial 

 ornamentation assumed by the Puffin ; but what other 

 ornament coukl so well convey the bird's message, if the 

 message she means to convey is one of warning ? 



'I^here are, of course, sohk^ briglit tints that arc not 

 connected with the nuj^tial season, and for the meaning 

 of which we must look in otlier (hrectioiis. Vov instancx\ 

 I lie beautiful i)atcli of blue on the w ing of the Jay cannot 

 be a nuptial distinction, because it is found not only in 

 both sexes but in the 3'oung that have just left the nest. 



