SEXUAL SELECTION : BIRDS. 
Part It 
46 
The peacock with his long train appears more like 9 
dandy than a warrior, but he sometimes engages i° 
fierce contests: the Rev. W. Darwin Fox informs ® c 
that two peacocks became so excited whilst fighting a* 
some little distance from Chester that they flew over 
the whole city, still fighting, until they alighted on tk® 
top of St. John's tower. 
The spur, in those gallinaceous birds which are thu s 
provided, is generally single; but Polyplectron (se® 
fig. 51 , p. 90) has two or more on each leg ; and one of 
the Blood-pheasants ( Ithaginis emeritus ) has been seel 1 
with five spurs. The spurs are generally confined to tk® 
male, being represented by mere knobs or rudiments 111 
the female; but the females of the Java peacock (PaV° 
muticus ) and, as 1 am informed by Mr. Blvth, of the small 
fire-backed pheasant ( Euplocamus erythropthalmus) p« s ' 
sess spurs. In G-alloperdix it is usual for the males t® 
have two spurs, and for the females to have only on® 
on each leg. 18 Hence spurs may safely be considered a s 
a masculine character, though occasionally transferred 
in a greater or less degree to the females. Like most 
other secondary sexual characters, the spurs are highly 
variable both in number and development in the sa®® 
species. 
Various birds have spurs on their wings. But tk® 
Egyptian goose ( Chenalopex ssgyptiacus ) has only “ bai’ 6 ’ 
“ obtuse knobs,” and these probably shew us the fir s 
steps by which true spurs have been developed in othe r 
allied birds. In the spur-winged goose, Pledropter $ 
gambensis, the males have much larger spurs than tk® 
females ; and they use them, as I am informed by Jl 1 ’ 1 
Bartlett, in fighting together, so that, in this case, tlF 
15 Jerdon, * Birds of India on Ithaginis, vol. iii. p. 523 ; on Gall 0 ' 
perdix, p. 541. 
