118 
SEXUAL selection: birds. 
Pabt II. 
breeding if a game-cock in good health and con- 
dition runs the locality, for almost every hen on leaving 
the roosting-place will resort to the game-cock, even 
though that bird may not actually drive away the male 
of her own variety.” Under ordinary circumstances the 
males and females of the fowl seem to come to a mutual 
understanding by means of certain gestures, described 
to me by Mr. Brent. But hens will often avoid the 
officious attentions of young males. Old hens, and 
hens of a pugnacious disposition, as the same writer 
informs me, dislike strange males, and will not yield 
until well beaten into compliance. Ferguson, however, 
describes how a quarrelsome hen was subdued by the 
gentle courtship of a Shanghai cock.^^ 
There is reason to believe that pigeons of both sexes 
prefer pairing with birds of the same breed ; and dove- 
cot-pigeons dislike all the highly improved breeds.^^ Mr. 
Harrison Weir has lately heard from a trustworthy 
observer, who keeps blue pigeons, that these drive 
away all other coloured varieties, such as white, red, 
and yellow ; and from another observer, that a female 
dun carrier could not be matched, after repeated trials, 
with a black male, but immediately paired with a dun. 
Generally colour alone appears to have little influence 
on the pairing of pigeons. Mr. Tegetmeier, at my re- 
quest, stained some of his birds with magenta, but they 
were not much noticed by the others. 
Female pigeons occasionally feel a strong antipathy 
towards certain males, without any assignable cause. 
Thus MM. Boitard and Corbie, whose experience ex- 
tended over forty-five years, state : Quand une femelle 
20 ‘ Rare and Prize Poultry/ 1854, p. 27. 
21 t Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication/ vol. 
ii. p. 103. 
