Ouaf. XVII r. Mammals — Ornaments. 54 1 



Quadrumana. As the negro of Africa raises the flesh on his 

 face into parallel ridges " or cicatrices, high above the natural 

 " surface, which unsightly deformities, are considered great 

 "personal attractions;" 34 — as negroes and savages in many 

 parts of the world paint their faces with red, blue, white, or 

 black bars, — so the male mandrill of Africa appears to have 

 acquired his deeply-furrowed and gaudily-coloured face from 

 having been thus rendered attractive to the "female. No doubt 

 it is to us a most grotesque notion that the posterior end of the 

 body should be coloured for the sake of ornament even more 

 brilliantly than the face ; but this is not more strange than that 

 the tails of many birds should be especially decorated. 



With mammals we do not at present possess any evidence 

 that the males take pains to display their charms before the 

 female ; and the elaborate manner in which this is performed by 

 male birds and other animals, is the strongest argument in 

 favour of the belief that the females admire, or are excited by, 

 the ornaments and colours displayed before them. There is, 

 however, a striking parallelism between mammals and birds in 

 all their secondary sexual characters, namely in their weapons 

 for fighting with rival males, in their ornamental appendages, 

 and in their colours. In both classes, when the male differs 

 from the female, the young of both sexes almost always resemble 

 each other, and in a large majority of cases resemble the adult 

 female. In both classes the male assumes the characters proper 

 to his sex shortly before the age of reproduction ; and if emas- 

 culated at an early period, loses them. In both classes the 

 change of colour is sometimes seasonal, and the tints of the 

 naked parts sometimes become more vivid during the act of 

 courtship. In both classes the male is almost always more 

 vividly or strongly coloured than the female, and is ornamented 

 with larger crests of hair or feathers, or other such appendages. 

 In a few exceptional cases the female in both classes is more 

 highly ornamented than the male. With many mammals, and 

 at least in the case of one bird, the male is more odoriferous 

 than the female. In both classes the voice of the male is more 

 powerful than that of the female. Considering this parallelism 

 there can be little doubt that the same cause, whatever it may 

 fee, has acted on mammals and birds ; and the result, as far as 

 ornamental characters are concerned, may be attributed, as it 

 appears to me, to the long-continued preference of the indi- 

 viduals of one sex for certain individuals of the opposite sex, 

 combined with their success in leaving a larger number of 

 offspring to inherit their superior attractions. 



34 Sir S. Baker, 'The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,' 1867. 



