276 THE BIRD WATCHER 
I have drawn attentygm to, and endeavoured to ac- 
count for. 
To recapitulate. As the theory of sexual selection 
supposes that the one sex has been adorned and made 
beautiful in accordance with the taste and choice 
of the opposite one during the love season, we might 
expect that amongst those birds where the males are 
beautiful and the females plain, the more active part 
in courtship would be taken by the former ; for this 
is the very road along which such beauty must have 
been gained. On the other hand, if the females had 
been equally ardent they would have arrived, by the 
same road, at the same, or a similar, goal. Therefore, 
in the above cases we ought to be prepared to find 
what we do find. But when the sexes, whether 
beautiful or not, resemble one another, there is not 
the same reason for supposing that the male alone 
actively courts, and since, in such cases, it is very 
difficult to tell by actual observation whether this is so, 
or not, we really know very little about the matter. 
Instead of knowing, we assume, and of two birds, 
either of which may be, as far as outward appearance 
goes, either the male or the female, that one which 
we see pursuing or paying court to the other is 
always the male in our eyes. Yet even amongst 
those species where the male alone is adorned, court- 
ing on the part of the female is by no means unknown, 
and rival hens sometimes fight for the cock. How 
much more, therefore, is this likely to be the case 
where the sexes are alike, and where, consequently, 
