IN THE SHETLANDS PE | 
as already explained, there is not the same primd facie 
probability of one only (the male) having been selected! 
The fact that both the male and female of various 
birds of this class utter the same cries, and indulge in 
the same antics, during the nuptial season, is some 
evidence that either sex tries to please—z.e. courts— 
the other ; for similar actions and utterances must be 
taken as implying a similar psychology—they are not 
like colours or markings—and we cannot, therefore, 
conceive of them as being merely transmitted, by the 
laws of inheritance, through the male to the female, 
and having a mental significance only in the case 
of the former, or conversely. A bad constitution— 
the result of intemperance—might descend through 
the father to the temperate daughter; but if the 
habit of drinking be also inherited, so must the flaw 
in the character, of which it is the outcome. 
If we admit that certain antics (or cries) common to 
both sexes of certain birds, have had a like origin in 
the case of either, then, if by such common actions 
some common beauty is displayed, it is unreasonable 
to think that this has been acquired through the action 
of sexual selection in the case of the one sex (the 
male) and not in the case of the other (the female), for 
where the psychology and actions are the same, the 
laws governing them must be the same, and their 
effects the same. 
The above considerations, enforced as they have 
been by much that I have myself observed, make me 
doubt whether the view that where any species of bird 
