Vol. XXXIII 



1916 



j Huxley, Bird-watching and Biological Science. 14/ 



At the other end of the series we get such birds as the Ruff 

 {Machetes) which is polygamous, but still shows a certain degree 

 of promiscuity as well.^ 



Other polygamous birds, such as the Peacock and the Pheasants, 

 have more definite harems; while in the curious and beautiful little 

 Phalaropes, the whole normal relation of the sexes is reversed, the 

 hens in bright-colored plumage courting the cocks, who in their 

 turn undertake all the duties of incubation. 



Enough has been said 'to show the variety and interest of these 

 relations alone. By collecting all available data we shall first of 

 all be able to correlate the marriage-habits with the classification. 

 Since the classification is by now fairly natural, or in other words, 

 since it groups together those species of birds which are related by 

 descent, we shall then be able to trace the evolution of the various 

 customs and instincts — to see what was the most primitive condi- 

 tion, and to trace out whether polygamy and other specialized 

 habits have arisen once only, or independently many times over. 



This is important from the purely zoological point of view; it 

 will also throw light on various problems of Evolution, notably on 

 the question of Parallelism or the repeated origin of one adaptation 

 from different ancestral stocks. 



It is obviously of great interest to the Sociologist, since here he 

 can trace the beginnings of all sex-relationships, in creatures where 

 emotion is not yet complicated by reason. And if we study the 

 details of each history carefully enough we shall, I hope to show, be 

 able to interpret the phenomena of consciousness — the emotions 

 and desires that lie behind the actions, — with sufficient accuracy 

 to bring much grist to the mill of the comparative psychologist. 

 Do not think me fantastic if I say that, even in birds, I believe that 

 the finest emotions and most comfortable happiness are, as in man, 

 associated with that form of monogamy in which male and female 

 bear approximately equal parts. To support my opinions I will 

 refer the reader to those of Selous ('13, pp. 298-299) elicited by his 

 watching of Wild Swans. 



Three years ago such words would have been almost without 

 meaning to me; it was not until I had spent weeks watching the 



1 See Selous' exhaustive paper in the Zoologist for 1906. 



