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Show 122 SEXUAL SELEC'riON : BIRD.'. J' .lnT ]1. hand, in effecting hybrid unions between tho male pheasant and common hens, Mr. Ilowitt is convinced that tho pheasant invariaLly prefers the older birds. Tie does not appear to be in tho least influenced by their colour, but " is most " capricious in his attachments." 29 From some inexplicable cause he shews tho most determined aversion to certain hens, which no care on the part of tho breeder can overcome. Some hens, as Mr. Hewitt informs me, are quite unattractive even to the males of their own species, so that they may be kept with several cocks during a whole season, and not one egg out of forty or :fifty will prove fertile. On the other hand with the Long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), "it bas been remarked," says 1\f. Ekstrom, "that certain females arc much more ';courted than the rest. Frequently, indeed, one sees '' an individual surrounded by six or eight amorous " males." 'Whether this statement is credible, I know not; but the native sportsmen shoot these females in order to stuff them as decoys.30 With respect to female birds feeling a preference for particular males, we must bear in mind that we can judge of choice being exerted, only by placing our. ·elves in imagination in tho same position. If an inhabitant of another planet were to behold a number of young rustics at a fair, courting and quarrelling over a pretty girl, like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he would be able to infer that she had the ])Ower of choice only by observing the eagerness of the wooers to please her, and to display their :finery. Now with birds, the evidence stands thus ; they have acute powers of observation, and they seem to have some ~9 1\fr. Hewitt, quoted in' Tegetmeior's Poultry Book,' 18GG, p. 1G5. Jo Quoted in Lloyd's 'Gnme Birds of Sweden,' p. 34.5. ('!lAP, XIV. rREFERENCE BY THE FEl\IALE. 123 taste for the beautiful both in colour and sound. It :is certain that tho females occasionally exhibit, from nnknown causes, the strongest antipathies and prefer ·ences for particular males. When the sexes differ in -colour or in other ornaments, the males with rare exceptions are the most highly decorated, either permanently or temporarily during the breeding-season. They sedulously display their various ornaments, exert their voices, and perform strange antics in the presence of the females. Evon well-armed males, who, it might have been thought, would have altogether depended for success on the law of Lattle, are in most cases highly ornamented; and their ornaments have been acquired at the expense of some loss of power. In other cases ornaments have been acquired, at the cost of increased risk from birds and beasts of prey. With various species many individuals of both sexes congregate at the same spot, and their courtship is a prolonged affair. There is even reason to suspect that the males and females within the same district do not always succeed in pleasing each other and pairing. What then are we to conclude from these facts and considerations? Does the male parade his charms with so much pomp and rivalry for no purpose? Are we not justified in believing that the female exerts a choice, and that she receives the addresses of the male who pleases her most ? It is not probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is most excited or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males. Nor need it be supposed that the female studios each stripe or spot of colour; that the peahen, for instance, admires each detail in the gorgeous train of the peacock-she is probably struck only by the general .effect. N evertbeless after hearing how carefully the male Argus pheasant displays his elegant primary |
