PAIRING. 137 



CHAPTER XL 



PAIRING OF BIRDS. 



IT would not be easy to select a more striking 

 instance of the wisdom displayed in regulating the 

 works of creation, than the extraordinary, and, to 

 us, inexplicable fact of the males and females of all 

 animals being always found in nearly the same pro- 

 portional numbers. With respect to mankind, for 

 example, it has been proved, by taking a census of 

 the population in different countries, that the ratio 

 of the two sexes shows very little variation. Hufe- 

 land found that in Germany there are about twenty- 

 one males to twenty females ; and by the popula- 

 tion returns for England and Wales from 1811 to 

 1820, the number of males born was 1,664,557, and 

 of females, 1,590,510. It has been inferred that the 

 uniform excess of male births is providentially de- 

 signed to meet the greater mortality arising from 

 men being, by their habits of life, more exposed to 

 dangers. No physiological investigation hitherto 

 attempted has been successful in elucidating the 

 more immediate causes of these wonderful facts, 

 though some of the laws by which they are regu- 

 lated have recently been successfully traced by the 

 curious experiments of M. Girou de Buzareingues, 

 who found, that with respect to the ages of the in- 

 dividuals paired, and the proportion of the sexes 

 produced, nearly the same principles held good 

 among fowls as among quadrupeds, at least when 

 both were domesticated. 



The males of quadrupeds seldom lend any assist- 

 ance whatever in taking care of the young. The 

 assistance of the male, indeed, in most animals 

 which suckle their young, is not at all wanted, and 

 hence he seldom takes any notice, or even knows of 

 M2 



