828 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it is true of the gemmeous dragonet and of the butterfly gurnard, of 

 the peacock and the humming-bird, of the bird-of-paradise and the 

 argus pheasant, of the perfume of the musk-deer and the antlers of 

 the stag, of the lion's mane and the monkeys' beards, crests, and 

 gorgets. All alike are assumed for the self-same purpose, and all are 

 useful merely to charm the fickle senses of the proverbially coyer and 

 more uncertain sex. 



The stickleback has acquired his gorgeous wedding-garb, in accord- 

 ance with a general law of animal life, in order to please and attract 

 to himself the attention of his aesthetic and fastidious mates. " After 

 the breeding-season," says Mr. Darwin, " these colors all change, the 

 throat and belly become of a paler red, the back more green, and the 

 glowing tints subside." Moreover, as usually happens in the case of 

 all highly decorated animals, your stickleback further resembles Solo- 

 mon in being a most undisguised polygamist in the natural state ; and 

 his brilliant hues have, no doubt, been developed to charm and draw 

 to his side as many as possible of the female fish. Polygamous ani- 

 mals, in other words, are always handsome, because only the hand- 

 somest succeed in attracting to themselves a harem, and so handing on 

 their peculiarities to future generations. Furthermore, the stickle- 

 backs are all great fighters ; and it may be broadly laid down once more 

 as a general principle of animal life, and at the same time a contribu- 

 tion to the theory of tittlebats, that all very handsome and decorated 

 creatures are naturally pugnacious of disposition. Thus stags fight 

 one another with their branching antlers for the possession of the does. 

 Salmon constantly johi battle and tear one another to pieces savagely 

 on the recognized spawning-beds. The polygamous ruff, distinguished 

 from his sober-suited mate the reeve by his curious crest, and by the 

 great collar of plumes from which his name is taken, is as full of the 

 Homeric joy of battle as a game-cock, and quite as gamy. The wild 

 Sum at ran ancestor of our own barn-door fowl " does battle in defense 

 of his seraglio till one of the combatants drops down dead." Black- 

 cock and capercailzie assemble annually at regular tournaments, to 

 fight one another, and display their beauty before their expectant and 

 undecided dames ; and on such occasions Kovalevsky has seen the 

 snow of their arenas in Russia all red with blood, and covered with 

 the torn-out feathers of the champions. Most of the handsomest birds 

 and animals, indeed, are provided with special weapons for these fierce 

 encounters, such as the spurs of game-birds, the horns of antelopes, the 

 antlers of stags, the tusks of the musk-deer, the wing-darts of the pala- 

 media, and the fierce spiny fins of the most decorative fishes. Even 

 the dainty little humming-birds themselves are prodigious fighters, and 

 I have seen them engatnno; one another in their aerial battles with the 

 utmost pluck, vigor, and endurance. Furthermore, beauty in animals 

 is almost always accompanied, as Dr. Guntber has observed, by a very 

 hasty and irritable temper. 



