May, 1916 
THE SHADOW-BOXING OF PIPILO 
95 
fall head over heels from a palm tree to the. ground in their trial for mastery. 
Our interest in these encounters is partly the natural human zest for any 
well matched test of strength ; partly it is because they accompany, in the case 
of beast and bird, the annual climax of their horn development and habit-inter- 
est, and of their plumage and song. But for the nature student there is a 
deeper significance in all this, since it is the foundation of that basic law of 
selection, which probably influences the development of a race more than any 
other one thing, if we except the food problem and untoward climatic condi- 
tion. 
•The fundamental quality of this instinct is my only excuse for calling at- 
tention to its freakish and amusing manifestation in the shadow-boxing of the 
Anthony Towhee ( Pipilo crissalis senicula ) . The males of this species will 
come, in the breeding season, to a window pane where a good reflection of 
themselves is to be had, and fight with their mirrored and supposititious rival 
for hour upon hour. I have seen this with such frequence as to preclude the 
hypothesis of isolated individual vagary, and while, as I say, it is a small mat- 
ter in itself, it nevertheless shows, as well as the mortal combat of the moose, 
the length to which this pugnacious instinct can carry a creature. 
For dogged persistence and violence I have no case to compare in interest 
with the following experience of General Penney, of Nordhoff, California. He 
is one of those fortunate men who campaigned in the early days with Ur. Coues, 
so his observations have added interest and assurance of accuracy. In the late 
winter of 1913-1914, when the mating season had as yet hardly begun, one of 
these Anthony Towhees began coming every morning at nine or ten o’clock to 
a certain window of the living room of the General’s Ojai Valley home. At 
this hour the interior of the room was comparatively dark, and, in contrast to 
the bright light outside, created a very fair mirrored backing for the window 
pane. Perching on the sill, the bird would eye his reflection, and then set sys- 
tematically to work to kill that supposed rival, with all the ire and intolerance 
of a rutting moose. The tactics varied somewhat, but on the whole, the bird 
firmly believed that victory lay in the frequence of his attacks, rather than in 
their violence, so that the blows of his beak rained on the pane with all the 
persistence of water dripping on a tin porch roof after an Eastern thaw. Each 
blow was, of course, met squarely by the shadowed beak of his opponent; each 
retreat w T as mimicked by the shadow; each unusually furious onslaught was 
countered in equal force. Sometimes they rested as though by mutual consent 
— the bird and his sparring partner — but presently some turn of the bird’s 
head would find an answering challenge in the glass, and he would fly at it 
again. Hour after hour this continued, until the bird was completely ex- 
hausted, or until the light changed and the reflection vanished. 
This continued day after day and week after week with scarcely an inter- 
ruption, and became a positive nuisance. As time went on and his attacks 
netted him nothing, Pipilo worked himself into greater and greater frenzy 
until blood specks from his beak often covered the lower paid of the pane. 
The smaller head feathers, loosened in the fracas, would stick to these blood 
spots and necessitate frequent window washing, in addition to the “damnable 
iteration” of his tap, tap, tapping at the pane. Nothing was done about it, 
however, and it continued as an almost daily performance until early summer. 
Then, with the close of the breeding season, the bird stopped of his own accord. 
One can imagine a bird fighting its reflection for a moment on first dis- 
