IN THE SHETLANDS 267 
also, our conclusions in regard to the lower animals? 
Here, too, the actions of the female may be often 
more subtle and difficult to follow than those of the 
male, though in many cases, as I believe, they are seen 
plainly enough, but, for a reason shortly to be men- 
tioned, attributed to the male. Yet in the case of 
birds, at any rate, it is very noticeable in some species 
that the females, after the couples have once paired off, 
are extremely eager in their enticements of the males 
to hymeneal pleasures, and it seems difficult to recon- 
cile this eagerness after marriage with any very real 
coldness before it—especially as the supposed coy 
sweetheart of one spring has been the forward wife of 
the spring before. But there is another point, in this 
connection, which it is of the utmost importance for 
us to bear in mind. Birds in which, if in any, we 
might expect to find the courting actions alike or 
similar in the male and female (and this would imply 
an active wooing on the part of each) are of two 
classes—viz. (1) those in which the sexes are alike or 
nearly so, and (2) those in which, though they may 
differ conspicuously, the one is as handsome, or nearly 
as handsome, as the other. In the first case, the colours 
of the hen must either be due to the selective agency 
of the cock, or they must have been transmitted to 
her through the latter (as being prepotent), in which 
case they can have no significance as far as the theory 
of sexual selection is concerned—two possibilities 
which equally require proving. In the second case— 
but examples of this nature are not, I believe, numerous 
