286 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
the females prefer certain males on account of the beauty of 
their plumage.” Mr. Hewitt was convinced “ that the female 
almost invariably prefers the most vigorous, defiant, and 
mettlesome male;” and Mr. Tegetmeier, “that a gamecock, 
though disfigured by being dubbed, and with his hackles 
trimmed, would be accepted as readily as a male retaining all 
his natural ornaments.” 1 Evidence is adduced that a female 
pigeon will sometimes take an antipathy to a particular male 
without any assignable cause; or, in other cases, will take a 
strong fancy to some one bird, and will desert her own mate 
for him; but it is not stated that superiority or inferiority 
of plumage has anything to do with these fancies. Two 
instances are indeed given, of male birds being rejected, which 
had lost their ornamental plumage; but in both cases (a 
widow-finch and a silver pheasant) the long tail-plumes are 
the indication of sexual maturity. Such cases do not support 
the idea that males with the tail-feathers a trifle longer, or 
the colours a trifle brighter, are generally preferred, and 
that those which are only a little inferior are as generally 
rejected,—and this is what is absolutely needed to establish 
the theory of the development of these plumes by means of 
the choice of the female. 
It will be seen, that female birds have unaccountable likes 
and dislikes in the matter of their partners, just as we have 
ourselves, and this may afford us an illustration. A young 
man, when courting, brushes or curls his hair, and has his 
moustache, beard, or whiskers in perfect order, and no doubt 
his sweetheart admires them; but this does not prove that 
she marries him on account of these ornaments, still less that 
hair, beard, whiskers, and moustache were developed by the 
continued preferences of the female sex. So, a girl likes to see 
her lover well and fashionably dressed, and he always dresses 
as well as he can when he visits her; but we cannot conclude 
from this that the whole series of male costumes, from the 
brilliantly coloured, puffed, and slashed doublet and hose of 
the Elizabethan period, through the gorgeous coats, long 
waistcoats, and pigtails of the early Georgian era, down to 
the funereal dress-suit of the present day, are the direct result 
of female preference. In like manner, female birds may be 
1 Descent of Man, pp. 417, 418, 420. 
