478 THM DESCENT OF MAN, 



aversion to certain hens, which no care on the part of the 

 breeder can overcome. Mr. Hewitt informs me that some 

 hens are quite unattractive even to the males of their own 

 species, so that they may be kept with several cocks during 

 a whole season, and not one Qgg out of forty or fifty will 

 prove fertile. On the other hand, with the long-tailed 

 duck {Harelda glacialis), " it has been remarked,^' says M. 

 Ekstrom, ^^ that certain females are much more courted 

 than the rest. Frequently, indeed, one sees an individual 

 surrounded by six or eight amorous males." Whether 

 this statement is credible, I know not ; but the native 

 sportsmen shoot these females in order to stuff them as 

 decoys.* 



With respect to female birds feeling a preference for 

 particular males we must bear in mind that we can judge 

 of choice being exerted only by analogy. If an inhabitant 

 of another planet were to behold a number of young 

 rustics at a fair courting a pretty girl and quarreling about 

 her, like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he 

 would, by the eagerness of the wooers to please her and to 

 display their finery, infer that she had the power of choice. 

 Now with birds the evidence stands thus; they have acute 

 powers of observation, and they seem to have some taste 

 for the beautiful both in color and sound. It is certain 

 that the females occasionally exhibit, from unknown 

 causes, the strongest antipathies and preferences for par- 

 ticular males. When the sexes differ in color or in other 

 ornaments the males with rare exceptions are the more 

 decorated, either permanently or temporarily during the 

 breeding-season. They sedulously display their various 

 ornaments, exert their voices, and perform strange antics in 

 the presence of the females. Even well-armed males, who, 

 it might be thought, would altogether depend for success 

 on the law of battle, are in most cases highly ornamented ; 

 and their ornaments have been acquired at the expense of 

 some loss of power. In other cases ornaments have been 

 acquired at the cost of increased risk from birds and beasts 

 of prey. With various species many individuals of both 

 sexes congregate at the same spot, and their courtship is a 

 prolonged affair. There is even reason to suspect that the 

 males and females within the same district do not always 

 succeed in pleasing each other and pairing. 



* (Quoted ii^ Lloyd's " Game Birds of Sweden," p. 34^. 



