Abstract
THE courtship displays of birds, wherein they manifest the amorous emotions which possess them, are now daily becoming more and more assertive. Much has yet to be learned concerning the ‘behaviour’ of birds thus possessed at this time; and the relation of this behaviour to various and often conspicuously coloured plumage, wattles, bare skin, or inflatable air-sacs. The pheasants afford striking illustrations of apparently conscious effort to display such ornaments to the best advantage before apparently disinterested females. The belief that these displays serve as aphrodisiacs must be regarded as well-founded. This fascinating aspect of bird life can now be studied at the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park; a number of tragopans, or horned-pheasants, as well as Cheer, Impeyan, and Kalij-pheasants, having just been added to the collections. Blyth's tragopan from Assam, and the crimson tragopan from the south-eastern Himalayas, each bears an erectile appendage over the eye, of a vivid blue colour; and an inflatable wattle at the throat. In Blyth's tragopan this is yellow tinged with blue, while in the crimson tragopan it is orange, barred with blue, and when filled with air presents a strange effect. If the courting antics of the tragopans be compared with those of the golden and Amherst pheasants, wherein the chief ornaments take the form of a great frill of vividly coloured feathers encircling the neck, the contention that both types display deliberate and purposeful movements designed to make the most effective possible use of these ornaments will seem incontrovertible. Though the Darwinian view that these resplendent areas were brought to perfection by the selective preferences of the female, before whom they are displayed, has lost its hold, they are nevertheless instances of ‘sexual selection’; since only the most amorous males, the most skilled performers, can succeed in arousing the desired response in their phlegmatic prospective mates.
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Courtship of Birds. Nature 131, 392 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131392c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131392c0