Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/380

364 creature." At such times the black-cocks are so absorbed that they become almost blind and deaf, but less so than the capercailzie: hence bird after bird may be shot on the same spot, or even caught by the hand. After performing these antics the males begin to fight: and the same black-cock, in order to prove his strength over several antagonists, will visit in the course of one morning several Balz-places, which remain the same during successive years.

The peacock with his long train appears more like a dandy than a warrior, but he sometimes engages in fierce contests: the Rev. W. Darwin Fox informs me that at some little distance from Chester two peacocks became so excited whilst fighting, that they flew over the whole city, still engaged, until they alighted on the top of St. John's tower.

The spur, in those gallinaceous birds which are thus provided, is generally single; but Polyplectron (see fig. 51, p. 397) has two or more on each leg; and one of the Blood-pheasants (Ithaginis cruentus) has been seen with five spurs. The spurs are generally confined to the male, being represented by mere knobs or rudiments in the female; but the females of the Java peacock (Pavo muticus) and, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, of the small fire-backed pheasant (Euplocamus erythropthalmus) possess spurs. In Galloperdix it is usual for the males to have two spurs, and for the females to have only one on each leg. Hence spurs may be considered as a masculine structure, which has been occasionally more or less transferred to the females. Like most other secondary sexual characters, the spurs are highly variable, both in number and development, in the same species.

Various birds have spurs on their wings. But the Egyptian goose (Chenalopex œgyptiacus) has only "bare obtuse knobs," and these probably shew us the first steps by which true spurs have been developed in other species. In the spur-winged goose, Plectropterus gambensis, the males have much larger spurs than the females; and they use them, as I am informed by Mr. Bartlett, in fighting together, so that, in this case, the wing-spurs serve as sexual weapons; but according to Livingstone, they are chiefly used in the defence of the young. The Palamedea (fig. 38) is armed with a pair of spurs on each wing; and these are such formidable weapons, that a single blow has been known to drive a dog howling away. But it does not appear that the spurs in this case, or in that of some of the spur-winged rails,