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In two families of the Homoptera and in three of the Orthoptera, the males alone possess sound-producing organs in an efficient state. These are used incessantly during the breeding-season, not only for calling the females, but apparently for charming or exciting them in rivalry with other males.
Should the Snipe, however, still breed in the Island, it would be as well to give it a place in the Guernsey Bird Act, as it is much more worthy of protection during the breeding-season than many of the birds there mentioned.
Perhaps, however, this is too much to have expected so far from their proper home. It would, however, have been interesting to know how late the birds would have remained before returning to their northern home; but the breeding-season for the Pheasants was beginning, and this was enough for the keeper, as he had actually seen two or three Pheasants some hens killed before he shot the Falcon.
After the breeding-season the Puffins seem to leave the Channel Islands for the winter, as they do at Lundy Island and in the British Channel; they may return occasionally, as they do in the Bristol Channel, for a short time in foggy weather; but I have never seen a Puffin in any of my passages in October and November, or in any boating expedition at that time of year, and I have never heard any of the boatmen talk about Barbelotes being seen about in the winter.
The sound thus produced is audible at a considerable distance but cannot be described; and I feel sure that its source would never be conjectured by any one hearing it for the first time. As this jarring sound is made chiefly during the breeding-season, it has been considered as a love-song; but it is perhaps more strictly a love- call.
During the breeding-season they contend for the possession of the females; and, in the act of courtship, expand their fins, which are spotted and ornamented with brightly coloured rays, in the same manner, according to M. Carbonnier, as the peacock.
The males of almost all gallinaceous birds, even those which are not furnished with spurs, engage during the breeding-season in fierce conflicts. Dr. W. Kovalevsky 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."
We may conclude that this is the case with many herons, egrets, etc., for they acquire their beautiful plumes only during the breeding-season. Moreover, such plumes, top-knots, etc., though possessed by both sexes, are occasionally a little more developed in the male than in the female; and they resemble the plumes and ornaments possessed by the males alone of other birds.
In the adult bird the head of L. melanocephalus in the breeding-season is black, not brown as in L. ridibundus, and the first three primaries are white with the exception of a narrow streak of black on the outer web of the first, and not white with a black margin as in L. ridibundus.
The poles unite, the zones agree, The tongues of striving cease; As on the Sea of Galilee, The Christ is whispering, "Peace!" The singing-birds whose notes are familiar to us, in towns and villages and the suburbs of the city, are found in the breeding-season only in these places, and are strangers to the deep woods and solitary pastures.
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