Chap. XIV.] PREFERENCE BY THE FEMALE. 117 



which the males show any preference for particular fe- 

 males, namely, that of the domestic cock, who, according 

 to the high authority of Mr. Hewitt, prefers the younger 

 to the older hens. On the other hand, in effecting hybrid 

 unions between the male pheasant and common hens, Mr. 

 Hewitt is convinced that the pheasant invariably prefers 

 the older birds. He does not appear to be in the least 

 influenced by their color, but is most " capricious in his 

 attachments." 29 From some inexplicable cause he shows 

 the most determined aversion to certain hens, which no 

 care on the part of the 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 has 

 been remarked," says M. Ekstrom, " that certain females 

 are 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 ourselves in 

 imagination in the 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 power of choice only by ob- 

 serving 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 



29 Mr. Hewitt, quoted in ' Tegetmeier's Poultry-Book,' 1866, p. 165, 



30 Quoted in Lloyd's ' Game-Birds of Sweden,' p. 345. 



