Chap. XIII. 
DISPLAY BY THE MALE. 
87 
insists that the beautiful plumage of the male serves 
to fascinate and attract the female.” Mr. Bartlett, at 
the Zoological Gardens, expressed himself to me in the 
strongest terms to the same effect. 
It must be a grand sight in the forests of India ^‘to 
come suddenly on twenty or thirty pea-fowl, the males 
displaying their gorgeous trains, and strutting about 
in all the pomp of pride before the gratified females.” 
The wild turkey-cock erects his glittering plumage, 
expands his finely-zoned tail and barred wing-feathers, 
and altogether, with his gorged crimson and blue wat- 
tles, makes a superb, though, to our eyes, grotesque 
appearance. Similar facts have already been given 
with respect to grouse of various kinds. Turning to 
another Order. The male Bupicola crocea (fig. 50) is 
one of the most beautiful birds in the world, being of 
a splendid orange, with some of the feathers curiously 
truncated and plumose. The female is brownish- 
green, shaded with red, and has a much smaller 
crest. Sir R. Schomburgk has described their court- 
ship ; he found one of their meeting-places where ten 
males and two females were present. The space was 
from four to five feet in diameter, and appeared to have 
been cleared of every blade of grass and smoothed as 
if by human hands. A male was capering to the 
apparent delight of several others. Now spreading 
its wings, throwing up its head, or opening its tail 
like a fan ; now strutting about with a hopping gait 
until tired, when it gabbled some kind of note, and 
‘‘ was relieved by another, 'l^hus three of them suc- 
cessively took the field, and then, Avith self-appro- 
bation, Avithdrew to rest.” The Indians, in order to 
obtain their skins, wait at one of the meeting-places 
till the birds are eagerly engaged in dancing, and then 
are able to kill, with their poisoned arrows, four or five 
