544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



edge that the ardor of the male can be stimulated by indifference and 

 inflamed to fury by resistance, prompts the female to practice all the 

 arts of coquetry, of which Mantegazza says : " No woman can surpass 

 the wonderful refinement with which a female canary-bird will offer a 

 seeming of opposition to the passion of the male. All the numerous 

 arts with which the world of women can conceal a 'yes' under a 'no' 

 are as nothing compared with the arrant coquetry, the dissembled ef- 

 forts to escape, the snappings and bitings, and the thousand tricks of 

 the females of animals." Brehm says that the male finds in the female 

 those desirable and attractive qualities that are wanting in himself. He 

 seeks the opposite to himself with the force of a chemical element. A 

 loud singing by the female would be as unpleasant to him as a beard 

 on the face of a woman would be to a man. According to an Eastern 

 proverb, man makes love with his speech, woman by her attitude and 

 bearing. Among the feathered races, whose love-life is more largely. 

 and intensively developed than that of any other of the families of 

 animals, the female perceives, feels, and knows that a discreet gracious- 

 ness, a quiet power, and unobtrusive yet expressive, tender, and gen- 

 tle manifestations, are attractions that operate irresistibly upon the 

 male, and she therefore adopts them in her demeanor toward her 

 suitor. Toussenel remarks : "Song is also given to the female ; and, if 

 she makes no use of the faculty, it is because she knows how to do 

 more and better than to sing. She, as well as her brother, has gone 

 through a course of music in her youth, and has cultivated her taste 

 with the years. This cultivation, in fact, filled a need of both birds, 

 for through it the female has become qualified to appreciate the charm 

 of the elegies that are to be sighed out to her, and to award to the 

 most worthy minstrel the prize for his song. The females know well 

 enough how to express themselves in the language of passion when 

 fancy inspires them to it or solitude condemns them to it." Fischer- 

 says that female birds begin at the same time with the males to twitter 

 in the first practice of song, although they never pass beyond the stage 

 of blundering at it. Bechstein remarks that the females of the canary- 

 bird, bull-finch, robin, and lark utter a melodious song, particularly in 

 widowhood. Darwin suggests that in some of these cases of female 

 songsters the habit of singing may be ascribed to the fact that the 

 birds are so well cared for and are captive ; for such conditions are 

 most likely to disturb all the functions connected with reproduction. 

 Numerous examples have been mentioned of the partial transmission 

 of secondary characteristics of the male to the female ; and it is not, 

 therefore, very surprising to find that the females of a few species also 

 possess a fully developed and active faculty of singing. I will only add 

 to these facts that even for a repressed exercise, and with a restricted 

 muscular activity, a force and a proper organ are requisite, and that 

 therefore the gently modulated, muflied sounds, the peeping, whisper- 

 ing, clucking, smacking, and cooing, with which the females respond 



