The males of many gallinaceous birds, especially of the polygamous kinds, are furnished with special weapons for fighting with their rivals, namely spurs, which can be used with fearful effect. It has been recorded by a trustworthy writer[69] that in Derbyshire a kite struck at a game-hen accompanied by her chickens, when the cock rushed to the rescue and drove his spur right through the eye and skull of the aggressor. The spur was with difficulty drawn from the skull, and as the kite though dead retained his grasp, the two birds were firmly locked together; but the cock when disentangled was very little injured. The invincible courage of the game-cock is notorious: a gentleman who long ago witnessed the following brutal scene, told me that a bird had both its legs broken by some accident in the cock-pit, and the owner laid a wager that if the legs could be spliced so that the bird could stand upright, he would continue fighting. This was effected on the spot, and the bird fought with undaunted courage until he received his death-stroke. In Ceylon a closely-allied and wild species, the Gallus Stanleyi, is known to fight desperately “in defence of his seraglio,” so that one of the combatants is frequently found dead.[70] An Indian partridge (Ortygornis gularis), the male of which is furnished with strong and sharp spurs, is so quarrelsome, “that the scars of former fights disfigure the breast of almost every bird you kill.”[71]
The males of almost all gallinaceous birds, even those which are not furnished with spurs, engage during the breeding-season in fierce conflicts. The Capercailzie and Black-cock (Tetrao urogallus and T. tetrix), which are both polygamists, have regular appointed places, where during many weeks they congregate in numbers to fight together and to display their charms before the females. M. W. Kowalevsky informs me that in Russia he has seen the snow all bloody on the arenas where the Capercailzie have fought; and the Black-cocks “make the feathers fly in every direction,” when several “engage in a battle royal.” The elder Brehm gives a curious account of the Balz, as the love-dance and love-song of the Black-cock is called in Germany. The bird utters almost continuously the most strange noises: “he holds his tail up and spreads it out like a fan, he lifts up his head and neck with all the feathers erect, and stretches his wings from the body. Then he takes a few jumps in different directions, sometimes in a circle, and presses the under part of his beak so hard against the ground that the chin-feathers are rubbed off. During these movements he beats his wings and turns round and round. The more ardent he grows the more lively he becomes, until at last the bird appears like a frantic 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.[72]
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 two peacocks became so excited whilst fighting at some little distance from Chester that they flew over the whole city, still fighting, 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. 90) 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.[73] Hence spurs may safely be considered as a masculine character, though occasionally transferred in a greater or less degree to the females. Like most other secondary sexual characters, the spurs are highly variable both in number and development in the same species.
Fig. 38. Palamedea cornuta (from Brehm), shewing the double-wing-spurs, and the filament on the head.
Various birds have spurs on their wings. But the Egyptian goose (Chenalopex ægyptiacus) has only “bare obtuse knobs,” and these probably shew us the first steps by which true spurs have been developed in other allied birds. 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 driven 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, are larger in the male than in the female.[74] In certain plovers, however, the wing-spurs must be considered as a sexual character. Thus in the male of our common peewit (Vanellus cristatus) the tubercle on the shoulder of the wing becomes more prominent during the breeding-season, and the males are known to fight together. In some species of Lobivanellus a similar tubercle becomes developed during the breeding-season “into a short horny spur.” In the Australian L. lobatus both sexes have spurs, but these are much larger in the males than in the females. In an allied bird, the Hoplopterus armatus, the spurs do not increase in size during the breeding-season; but these birds have been seen in Egypt to fight together, in the same manner as our peewits, by turning suddenly in the air and striking sideways at each other, sometimes with a fatal result. Thus also they drive away other enemies.[75]