68 
SEXUAL SELECTION : BIRDS. 
Part O ' 
“ hot from the animal, so does his ear prefer his equally 
“ coai’se and discordant music to all other.” 
Love-Antics and Lances. — The curious love-gestures 
of various birds, especially of the Gallinacem, have 
already been incidentally noticed ; so that little need 
here be added. In Northern America, large numbers 
of a grouse, the Tetrao phasianellus, meet every morning 
during the breeding-season on a selected level spot, 
and here they run round and round in a circle of about 
fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, so that the ground 
is worn quite bare, like a fairy-ring. In these Par- 
tridge-dances, as they are called by the hunters, the 
birds assume the strangest attitudes, and run round, some 
to the left and some to the right, Audubon describes 
the males of a heron (Ardea herodias ) as walking 
about on their long legs with great dignity before 
the females, bidding defiance to their rivals. With 
one of the disgusting carrion- vultures ( CatharteS 
jota) the same naturalist states that “the gesticulations 
and parade of the males at the beginning - of the 
“love-season are extremely ludicrous.” Certain birds 
perform their love-antics on the wing, as we have seen 
with the black African weaver, instead of on the 
ground. During the spring our little white-throat 
( Sylvia cinerea) often rises a few feet or yards in the 
air above some bush, and “flutters with a fitful and 
1 fantastic motion, singing all the while, and then drop 8 
‘ to its perch. The great English bustard throws 
himself into indescribably odd attitudes whilst courting 
the female, as has been figured by Wolf. An allied 
Indian bustard (Otis bengalensis) at such times “rises 
“ perpendicularly into the air with a hurried flapping 
ot his wings, laising his crest and puffing out the 
“ feathers of his neck and breast, and then drops to the 
