does not depend exclusively on the mere strength and courage of the
male; for such males are generally decorated with various ornaments,
which often become more brilliant during the breeding-season, and which
are sedulously displayed before the females. The males also endeavour
to charm or excite their mates by love-notes, songs, and antics; and
the courtship is, in many instances, a prolonged affair. Hence it is
not probable that the females are indifferent to the charms of the
opposite sex, or that they are invariably compelled to yield to the
victorious males. It is more probable that the females are excited,
either before or after the conflict, by certain males, and thus
unconsciously prefer them. In the case of Tetrao umbellus, a good
observer (23. Land and Water, July 25, 1868, p. 14.) goes so far as
to believe that the battles of the male are all a sham, performed to
show themselves to the greatest advantage before the admiring females
who assemble around; for I have never been able to find a maimed hero,
and seldom more than a broken feather. I shall have to recur to this
subject, but I may here add that with the Tetrao cupido of the United
States, about a score of males assemble at a particular spot, and,
strutting about, make the whole air resound with their extraordinary
noises. At the first answer from a female the males begin to fight
furiously, and the weaker give way; but then, according to Audubon,
both the victors and vanquished search for the female, so that the
females must either then exert a choice, or the battle must be renewed.
So, again, with one of the field-starlings of the United States
(Sturnella ludoviciana) the males engage in fierce conflicts, but at
the sight of a female they all fly after her as if mad. (24. Audubon s
Ornithological Biography; on Tetrao cupido, vol. ii. p. 492; on the
Sturnus, vol. ii. p. 219.)
VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
With birds the voice serves to express various emotions, such as
distress, fear, anger, triumph, or mere happiness. It is apparently
sometimes used to excite terror, as in the case of the hissing noise
made by some nestling-birds. Audubon (25. Ornithological Biography,
vol. v. p. 601.), relates that a night-heron (Ardea nycticorax, Linn.),
which he kept tame, used to hide itself when a cat approached, and then
suddenly start up uttering one of the most frightful cries, apparently
enjoying the cat s alarm and flight. The common domestic cock clucks
to the hen, and the hen to her chickens, when a dainty morsel is found.
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