When the actual pairing time arrives the parade of the frills begins again. The amorous instincts, it is important to notice, are awakened earlier in the males, so that by the time the females have attained to a like condition the least mettlesome males have been driven off. What follows is not the selection by the females of the finest performers so much as a process of sorting out, whereby the females discover and cleave to those males which are readiest for mating. This display succeeds in revealing both the most mettlesome males and the most amorous females, who, however, would seem to require great persistence and much demonstration on the part of the males before they can be finally aroused to the pitch necessary for pairing. Again and again a male may be seen to approach an apparently very unconcerned female, and then to crouch down before her with his beak pressed to the ground and his frill and “ears” set off to their fullest. For some seconds he will remain lost in apparent contemplation, then with a dazed, far-off, expression he will look up, to find, as often as not, that she is still apparently feeding, quite unmoved by his protestations; or that she has even flown off and left him. Pursuit speedily follows, and the performance is repeated until at last she too catches the flame of passion and permits, or rather invites, the final act of sexual congress. Though these birds on occasion will fight, and savagely, they cannot inflict serious damage on one another by reason of the relative feebleness of their beaks and legs, which are but ill-adapted for violent measures. Inasmuch as the Ruff is a polygamous species, these bloodless battles have a peculiar interest. They show that the preponderance of females, which polygamy implies, is not, as is commonly supposed to be the case, due to a high death-rate among the males by fighting. The same is true of the Wydah-birds, and their kin, the only polygamous species among the Passeres.