THE SYMPHONY OF VOICES 



will excite him to sing more vigorously! It is the same in a state 

 of nature. If one hears a bird singing more loudly and beautifully 

 than usual, one may be sure that one cock is singing against another ; 

 and only too often this competition ends in assault and battery. 

 Similarly, the display of the peacock or turkey-cock, the dancing 

 of the heath-cock or the orange-red Cock-of-the-Rock in the silent 

 forests of the Amazon, are intended not for the hen, but for other 

 cocks! They are not erotic dances, but expressions of jealousy and 

 pugnacity ! 



And so with the song of the bird, the rutting call of the stag, 

 the chirping of the cricket. Let us reflect that the conquest of the 

 hen's affections is by no means the most difficult of arts ! If she is 

 in the right mood she cares nothing for beauty, or for skill in song 

 or dance, but simply accepts any male bird that comes her way. 

 Even in the case of our dogs we see that the shabbiest mongrel often 

 finds favour with the most aristocratic bitch. The suitor's real diffi- 

 culty is to get the better of his rivals. We must not forget that through- 

 out the animal kingdom the males are in the majority, so that many 

 of them can never succeed in propagating their kind. There is 

 therefore competition between them, and indescribable excitement, 

 and any means is good which will lead to victory. Even when the male 

 has won a female he must not take things too quietly, for there are 

 young bachelors in every thicket, always ready to take possession 

 of the nearest female. For this reason the bird sings on the topmost 

 bough ; for this reason he makes himself as conspicuous as possible ! 

 He wishes to make his presence known, to make the quarrelsome 

 bachelors conscious of his whereabouts. Many birds, hke the little 

 black Surador finches, which one sees ahke in the capital and in 

 the desert, fly upwards as they sing, to make themselves jnore con- 

 spicuous. And on observing song-birds of other species, in Brazil 

 and in Europe, I have always been convinced that the singer was 

 feeling the urge to make his presence known, in order to show that 

 the female of his beat or district already had a mate, and must 

 therefore be left alone. Such behaviour, then, amounts to a kind 

 of intimidation of rival males. And the actual effect of the rutting- 

 call of the six-pointer stag is that the younger stags timidly turn 

 aside. Again, if he watches the behaviour of the turkey-cock, the 

 unprejudiced observer must confess that the dance of this bird is 

 more like a dance of rage, a war-dance, than a tender wooing. And 

 human dances even, among the most primitive peoples, are danced 

 only by men, and are war-dances, just as the most primitive form 



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