File:The British bird book (1921) (14569138587).jpg

Identifier: cu31924022566420 (find matches)
Title: The British bird book
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Wood, Theodore, 1862- Pycraft, W. P., (William Plane), b. 1868 Green, Roland, 1895-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London : A. & C. Black
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ged its complexion. And this largely owing tothe accumulation of new facts. For the most important ofthese we are indebted to the singularly exact and laboriousobservations analysed, clarified, and interpreted with remark-able insight and sagacity of Mr. H. Eliot Howard, one of thekeenest ornithologists of our time. He has set forth hiscase, and interpreted his facts with masterly skill, and thereseems no escape from his conclusions. Briefly, he has shownthat birds of quite sober coloration like the warblers, whichformed the basis of his investigations, engage in displaysquite as remarkable, and of precisely the same character asin birds of gaily coloured plumage. From this it is clearthat this wing-play is not prompted by a more or less con-scious desire to display conspicuously coloured patches ofcolour, for of colour there is none save that of the general hueof varying shades of brown, as in the case of the grasshopperwarbler, for example. Nor is the display, apart from colour, 200
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to to be regarded as a performance slowly perfected throughlong generations through the selection of females, coy andhard to please. We must regard these Nuptial flights and wing-displays as the outward and visible signs of a stateof ecstatic amorousness on the part of the males which, bytheir persistence and frequent recurrence, at last arousesympathetic response in the females. They play the partof an aphrodisiac. Without them there would be no mating.In my Courtship of Animals those who will may pursue thissubject further. Before closing this chapter mention must be made ofthe most remarkable wing-display to be found among birds,and of the equally remarkable uses to which they are put.The possessor of these wonderful appendages, for they arewonderful, is the argus pheasant of the Malay Peninsulaand Borneo. Though efficient for short flights in jungles,all that is ever required of them, they would be quite uselessin open country where an extended journey had to be made,or escape att

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