° 1916 J Huxley, Bird-watching and Biological Science. 145 



man is a microcosm, exhibiting in miniature all the activities of a 

 universe ; and as far as marriage customs go, the idea is a true one. 

 In the single species Man are found many varieties of marriage — 

 promiscuity, polyandry, polygamy, and finally monogamy in all 

 its phases of refinement — in origin largely a hateful economic 

 necessity, yet in the outcome proving itself divinest of possibility. 

 Almost every variation that is found as a mere fluctuating phase 

 in the history of man exists separately, as a rigid law, for some 

 species of bird. Bateson, in one of his lectures, gives us an imagi- 

 nary conversation between a Pigeon and a Barndoor Fowl. The 

 Pigeon rebukes the immorality of the Fowl's polygamous estate, 

 while the Hen retorts that the Pigeons neglect the welfare of their 

 race by confining themselves to a single mate. The Fowl and the 

 Pheasant have Harems of the Orient, one cock owning more wives 

 than another less successful bird. The Blackcock's system in 

 some ways recalls that imaginary one of Plato's, for here there is no 

 marriage, but the males have their appointed station, and their 

 duties are over when the hens have come and chosen out the best. 

 Still more mixture of promiscuity with polygamy is found in the 

 Ruff. There are savage combats in the Thrushes, tournaments 

 and jousts in Redshank and Blackcock. The chase is as frequent 

 an adjunct of courtship as it was, if we are to believe the poets, 

 with the Greek gods and nymphs, and as it is in manj' savage 

 tribes to-day. And if one watches a pair of Red-winged Blackbirds 

 or Mockingbirds in such a pursuit, he is inevitably driven to the 

 conclusion that sometimes at least there is in it a thrill of pleasur- 

 able excitement for the female, of which she is fully conscious, even 

 to the extent, I think, of sometimes provoking the chase. 



When there is a monogamous union, it may be a temporary one, 

 for the season only, as in most birds, or a true life-marriage, as in 

 piost Crows and Hawks. 



Some birds lay down that "a woman's place is in the home," 

 and the hen exclusively undertakes the duties of incubation. An 

 extreme case of this deprivation of freedom of the female is seen 



course of time to resemble the male more and more closely. Whether or not this second 

 process actually takes place, we do know of course that the inhibition can vary in extent, as 

 is shown by the Reindeer, where both sexes now share a primitively male character, or the 

 Pheasant, where the female shows practically total inhibition of the male characters, for 

 the purpose of protective coloration. The decision between these two possibilities must at 

 present be left open. 



