Chap. XVIII. Mammals — Choice in Pairing. 525 



without any apparent cause taking to another, that various artifices 

 have to be habitually used. The famous Monarque, for instance, 

 would never consciously look at the dam of Gladiateur, and a 

 trick had to be practised. We can partly see the reason why 

 valuable race-horse stallions, which are in such demand as to be 

 exhausted, should be so particular in their choice. Mr. Blenkiron 

 has never known a mare reject a horse ; but this has occurred 

 in Mr. Wright's stable, so that the mare had to be cheated. 

 Prosper Lucas 48 quotes various statements from French autho- 

 rities, and remarks, " On voit des etalons qui s'eprennent d'une 

 " jument, et negligent toutes les autres." He gives, on the 

 authority of Baelen, similar facts in regard to bulls; and Mr. 

 H. Eeeks assures me that a famous short-horn bull belonging to 

 his father " invariably refused to be matched with a black cow." 

 Hoffberg, in describing the domesticated reindeer of Lapland 

 says, " Fceminae majores et fortiores mares prse ceteris admittunt, 

 '* ad eos confugiunt, a junioribus agitatse, qui hos in fugam 

 " conjiciunt." i9 A clergyman, who has bred many pigs, asserts 

 that sow r s often reject one boar and immediately accept another. 

 From these facts there can be no doubt that, with most of our 

 domesticated quadrupeds, strong individual antipathies and pre- 

 ferences are frequently exhibited, and much more commonly by 

 the female than by the male. This being the case, it is impro- 

 bable that the unions of quadrupeds in a state of nature should 

 be left to mere chance. It is much more probable that the 

 females are allured or excited by particular males, who possess 

 certain characters in a higher degree than other males; but 

 what these characters are, we can seldom or never discover with 

 certainty. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Secondary Sexual Characters op Mammals — continued. 



Voice — Remarkable sexual peculiarities in seals — Odour — Development 

 of the hail' — Colour of the hair and skin — Anomalous case of the female 

 being more ornamented than the male — Colour and ornaments due to 

 sexual selection — Colour acquired for the sake of protection — Colour, 

 though common to both sexes, often due to sexual selection — On the 

 disappearance of spots and stripes in adult quadrupeds — On the colours 

 and ornaments of the Quadrumana — Summary. 



Quadrupeds use their voices for various purposes, as a signal of 

 danger, as a call from one member of a troop to another, or from 

 the mother to her lost offspring, or from the latter for protection 



48 ' Traite' de l'Hered. Nat.' torn. 49 i Amoenitates Acad.' vol. iv 



a. 1850, p. 296. 1788, p. 160. 



