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. [Illustration: Fig. 38. Palamedea cornuta (from Brehm), shewing the double-wing-spurs, and the filament on the head.]