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Show 106 SEXUAL SELECTION : BIRDS. PART II .. widower vvas thrice consoled during the same day. Mr. Eno-leheart also informs me that be used during several yea~·s to shoot one of a pair of starlings which built in a hole in a house at Blackheatb; but the loss was always immediately repaired. During one season he. kept an account aml found that he bad shot thirty-five bn·ds from the same nest; these consisted of both males and females, but in what proportion he coul<l not say: nevertheless after all this destruction, a brood was re~r~d·6 These facts are certainly remarkable. How IS rt that so many birds are ready im~cdiately to rep~ace a lost mate ? Magpies, jays, carnon-crow~, partndg~s, o·and some other birds are never seen dunng the sprmb by themselves, and' these offer at first sight the most perplexing case. But birds of ~be sa~e ~ex, ~l~hot~~h of course not truly paired, sometimes hve m .pau~ or m small parties, as is known to be t~e cas~ wr~h p1~eons and partridges. Birds also so~etrmes h.ve m tnplet~,. as has been observed with starlmgs, carnon-crows, parrot!:!, and partridges. With partridges two females h~vcbcen known to live with one male, and two males wrth one 'female. In all such cases it is probable that the union would be easily broken. 'rhe males of certai? birds may occasionally be heard pouring forth the1r love-song long after the proper time, shewing that they have either lost or never gained a mate. Death from accident or disease of either one of a pair, ~ould leave the other bird free and single ; and there rs reason to believe that female birds during the breeding-season a On the peregrine falcon sec Thompson, 'Nat. I~ist. of holn~u: Binh,' vol. i. 1R:H.J, p. 39. On owls, sparrows: and ~nrtndges, sec ~Vlut7~ • NaL JiisL. of Sclbornc,' etlit. of 1825, vol. 1. p. 139. On tho l hoom curn, .sec Loudon's' 1\iag. of Nat. llist.' vol. vii. 1834,, p. 24.5 .. Brehm, (' 'l'hicrlebcn,' B. iv. s. 991) ulso alludes to cases of bmls thnce mated during same day. UIIAL'. XIV. UNPAIRED BIRDS. 107 arc especially liable to premature death. Again, birds which have had their nests destroyed, or banen pairs, or retarded individuals, would easily be induced to desert their mates, and would probably be glad to take what share they could of the plcasmcs and duties of roaring offspring, although not their own.7 Such contingencies as these probably explain most of the foregoing cases.8 N cvertheless it is a strange fact that within the same district, during the height of the breeding-season, thoro should be so many males and females always ready to repair the loss of a mated bird. Why do not such spare birds immediately pair together? Have we not some reason to suspect, and the suspicion has occurred to Mr. Jenner Weir, that inasmuch as the aet of courtship appears to be with many birds a prolonged and tedious affair, so it occasionally happens that certain males and females do not succeed during the proper season, in exciting each other's love, and consequently do not pair? This suspicion will appear somewhat less improbable after we have seen what ~ See Wl1ite .C' Nat. IIist. of Solbomc,' 1825, vol. i. p. HO) on tho ~x1stence, early m the season, of small coveys of mule partridges, of which ia.ct I have heard other instances. See Jenner, on the retarded otato o[ tho generative organs in certain uirds, in 'Phil. 1'ransact.' 1824. In regard to biTcls living in triplets, I owe to 1\ir. J enner Weir tho cases of the starling and parrots, anrl to 1\ir. Fox, of partridges ; on canioncrows, sec the 'FiclU,' 1868, p. 415. On various malo birds singing after tho proper period, sec Rev. L. Jonyns 'Observations in Natural History,' 1846, p. 87. ' 8 Tho following case has been given ('The 'fimes,' Aug. 6th, 186 ) uy the Hov. F. 0. Morris, on tho authority of the lion. and Hov. 0. W. l~orosler. ''The gamekeeper hero found a hawk's IICSt this your, with "five young ones in it. He took four and killed them but loft one ''with its wings clipped as a decoy to destroy tho old on~s by. 'fhey :.'were both shot next. day, in the act of feeding tho young one, and the keeper thought 1t was dono with. 'I'he next day he came arruin ''and founu two other charitable hawks, who had como with an adopted ·• feeling to succour the orphan. These two he killed, and then left " 1ho nest. On returning afterwards he found two more charitable |