Chap. XIII. 
DISPLAY BY THE MALE. 
91 
pause. To whichever side she may turn, the expanded 
wings and the obliquely-held tail are turned towards^ 
her. The male Tragopan pheasant acts in nearly the 
same manner, for he raises the feathers of the body^ 
though not the wing itself, on the side which is opposite 
to the female, and which would otherwise be concealed, 
so that nearly all the beautifully-spotted feathers are 
exhibited at the same time. 
The case of the Argus pheasant is still more striking. 
The immensely developed secondary wing-feathers, which 
are confined to the male, are ornamented with a row of 
from twenty to twenty-three ocelli, each above an inch in 
diameter. The feathers are also elegantly marked with 
oblique dark stripes and rows of spots, like those on the 
skin of a tiger and leopard combined. The ocelli are 
so beautifully shaded that, as the Duke of Argyll re- 
marks,®^ they stand out like a ball lying loosely within 
a socket. But when I looked at the specimen in the 
British Museum, which is mounted with the wings ex- 
panded and trailing downwards, I was greatly disap- 
pointed, for the ocelli appeared flat or even concave. 
Mr. Gould, however, soon made the case clear to me, 
for he had made a drawing of a male whilst he was dis^ 
playing himself. At such times the long secondary 
feathers in both wings are vertically erected and ex- 
panded ; and these, together with the enormously elon- 
gated tail-feathers, make a grand semicircular upright 
fan. Now as soon as the wing-feathers are held in this 
position, and the light shines on them from above, the 
full effect of the shading comes out, and each ocellus at 
once resembles the ornament called a ball and socket. 
These feathers have been shewn to several artists, and all 
have expressed their admiration at the perfect shading. 
‘ The Keign of Law,’ 1867, p. 203. 
