The Black-headed Sihia. 
105 
" portion of the neck is not hr/i/Iit but pule rufous. The lesser wing coverts 
"in my specimens ai'o not n(foiin,hut dtirk hroiri/ish-j/re// mixed with black ; 
" the primaries are distinctl.y insinuated towards the tips; and the ter- 
" tiaries, besides lieiiig- pale shafted for their entire lengths, are usually 
"edged with black on the inner margins." 
" On three or four occasions, I have had the good fortune to witness 
" the courtship of these birds, which is rather amusing. One runs, or 
"rather hops along a branch, with drooping wings and cocked tail, till it 
"reaches its mate, and then both birds sit, side by side, with ruffled fea- 
" thei's for a few seconds, after which this pjocess is repeated over and 
"over again; the birds eventually flying off to another tree, and com- 
" mencing afi esh as before. A peculiar sharp twitter or chuckle is emitted 
" by one of the birds during these antics, but the latter all end here and 
"must presumably be only the preliminai'ies. For I have not yet seen a 
" pair i/i cojinld." 
[A very similar performance was gone through in my 
aviary amid the branches, but they wound up by quite a 
dancing performance l)y the male, which was followed on three 
occasions by copulation. — Owing to a removal the birds shortly 
afterwards passed out of my possession and I was disappointed 
in my hope, for the time being, of breeding the species. — En.] 
"I must not forget to mention here two other points. The 
"first is that I have usually noticed more than tmo birds taking 
*' part in these courtships, and the second is that the liens in this 
" species sometimes appear to court the cocks. On the 25th of 
" June 1911 I came across three birds— a large one and two 
" siiitill ones indulging in the antics already described. The large bird 
" wasacock, and the two small ones were, I think hens; and I must confess 
" that their behaviour gave me the impression they were fighting with each 
" other for the possesion of the male. One of the small birds drove the 
" other small one away, and then she squatted on a branch by the side of 
" the large liird. Just as they got together, I shot the couple, and on 
" dissection, they turned out, as 1 suspected, to be of opposite sexes. Now 
" the bird diiven away, was, as already stated, a small bird, and [ think 
" there can be little doubt that it was another female. In spite of repeated 
" attemi)ts, however, I failed to secure it, for had I succeeded, all uncer- 
" tainty in the matter would have beeen removed, still I have no doubt 
" whatever in my own mind that it was a female, All this behaviour on 
" the part of the hens sounds very unladylike I know, and is at variance 
" with Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection, to wit, that among all species 
" of animals there is a competition among the males to secure females 
" as mates, but I take this opportunity of putting on record what I think 
" to be true." 
[Will those of our memljers wlio have true pairs of this 
species, take particular note as to their size? While my birds 
were an undoubted pair, I could distinguish no difference in 
