COURTSHIP AND SEX 197 



in the natural course of things one set of emotions succeeds 

 another, just as one set of motions and bodily functions 

 succeeds another. These are the golden and silver faces of 

 the bio-psychic shield. We mean that there is an emotional 

 concomitant of the nightingale's anxious guttural croak after 

 the brood is hatched, just as truly as there is in the early 

 summer nights, when we listen with " raptured ear " and 

 say, with Coleridge : 



" 'Tis the merry nightingale 

 That crowds and hurries and precipitates 

 With thick fast warble his deUcious notes, 

 As he were fearful that an April night 

 Would be too short for him to utter forth 

 His love-chant, and disburden his full soul 

 Of all his music." 



It is well known that some birds, Hke the thrush and the 

 lark, have a second time of singing after the silence and the 

 critical moult which follow the breeding season. There are 

 others, like the water-ouzel, the robin, and the wren, which 

 sing even during the winter. It may be permissible to 

 suggest that we are here face to face with evolution in process, 

 that bird-song is here rising on a higher turn of the spiral. 

 It is outlasting the nuptial period, it is overflowing into 

 everyday life, it is expressing yo?e de vivre beyond the confines 

 of sex, expressing success in the great task of happiness. 



We should like to say at this point that there is a tendency 

 to exaggerate the sex-impulse so as to exclude other excite- 

 ments that thrill the organism, such as aesthetic delight. The 

 collections of bright things made by jackdaws and the like 

 cannot be regarded as having any direct connection with 

 sex, and the beautiful objects gathered by the bower-birds 

 are surely enjoyed for their own sake. We must do birds 

 the justice of allowing them some appreciation of the beautiful 

 as something else than an erotic. A good case is mentioned 

 by Forel (1906) : a peahen that had never seen a peacock 

 was introduced to one outside the breeding season. She 

 flew rather than ran to him in the greatest excitement, and 

 circled round him in obvious admiration. He remained 

 quite cold and reserved until the advent of spring brought 



