COURTSHIP AND SEX 183 



which the cock and the hen play nearly equal parts in all 

 activities concerned with the family. We are, in fact, face 

 to face with an elaborate and slowly wrought out sex-ritual 

 which raises physical attraction to the level of psychical 

 affection, fondness to love, in short. 



The courtship ceremonial varies from species to species. 

 Thus in the American Western Grebe there is a remarkable 

 " water glide " and also a " wedding dance," in which the 

 two birds, with moss in their mouths, circle round three or 

 four times, breast to breast, in an erect position in the water. 

 In some species the voice counts for much ; thus we read of 

 Holboell's Grebe that " one of the birds would start with a 

 long wail and then the other would chime in with a similar 

 note, both winding up with a series of quavering cries very 

 much like the repeated whinnies of a horse. During these 

 vocal demonstrations the neck would be thrown forward 

 and the head and bill tilted upward at an angle of 45°." The 

 love-song of the Horned Grebe consists of a series of croaking 

 and chattering notes, followed by several prolonged piercing 

 shrieks ; in some other species there is an approach to 

 mellowness. 



Whether we take Mr. Pycraft's admirable study " The 

 Courtship of Animals " (1913), or a particular case like 

 that so thoroughly observed by Julian Huxley, we are led 

 to the conclusion that courtship-habits often have great 

 intricacy and subtlety, and that it is impossible to exclude 

 the psychical factors. Let us quote Huxley's summing- 

 up :— 



" Display and ornament do not act on the aesthetic sense 

 of the female, but on her emotional state ; they are — using 

 the words in no narrow or unpleasant sense — excitants, 

 aphrodisiacs, serving to raise the female into that state of 

 exaltation and emotion when alone she will be ready to 

 pair. . . . But the element of choice does, in another form, 

 remain. In animals such as birds, where there is a regular 

 pairing-up season, and where, too, the mental processes 

 are already of considerable complexity, it is impossible 

 to doubt but that mating may be, and in some species 



