510 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



with saying that the significance of animal courtship is to attract 

 the attention and awaken the passion of the desired mate. But the 

 courting ceremonial is often so extraordinarily elaborate and pro- 

 longed — almost like a ritual — that we feel bound to agree with 

 \V. H. Hudson and Julian Huxley that it has in these cases a deeper 

 than physiological significance. It forges psychical bonds which 

 keep the mates loyal partners and devoted parents when the storm 

 of passion is past. Controlled courtship may raise fondness into 

 love; and this unconscious end is its higher evolutionary significance. 



We miss part of the meaning of courtship if we do not appreciate 

 the elaborateness to which it may attain. Thus Julian Huxley's 

 study of the Great Crested Grebe has shown that for this bird the 

 courtship includes waggling and swaying, bending and shaking, a 

 "cat-attitude" of display, a "ghost-dive", and an offering of water- 

 weed gifts! The ceremonies establish emotional bonds. Even in one 

 of the most familiar of birds, namely, the lapwmg or peewit, there 

 is intricacy of courting behaviour — the extraordinary aerial dance 

 of the males, with its nose-dives and somersaults, the prayerful 

 cries, the "wing-music", the posing and the show-off, and the excited 

 formation of suggestive "scrapes" in the ground. The male Frigate 

 Bird has an incredible inflatable scarlet throat-pouch, and here is 

 Mr. Beebe's description of his behaviour: "Another emotion 

 obsessed him; he bent his head back until it sank between his 

 shoulders, the red balloon projecting straight upward, and the long 

 angular wings spread flat over the surrounding bushes. The entire 

 body rolled from side to side, as in an agony, while the apparently 

 dying bird gave vent to a remarkably sweet series of notes, as liquid 

 as the distant cry of a loon, as resonant as that of an owl. In our 

 human, inadequate verbal vocality, I can only record it as kew- 

 kew-kew-kew-kcw-kew. In a higher tone the female answered him 

 from the sky, oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo." 



When we pass from birds to mammals we have to admit a rather 

 poor second. For there may be no courtship at all; and when it 

 has been evolved, it is on the side of vigour rather than of art. It 

 is true that there arc sometimes passionate sex-calls, of which we 

 have knowledge in the cacophonous caterw^auling of the cats on 

 the roof; but these seem a sad bathos after the lyrics of the birds. 

 There are weird bowlings among monkeys and powerful bellowings 

 among deer, but they are not very artistic! Fondling and kissing 

 are well-known, especially in the wiser mammals, such as elephants: 

 occasionally there is a display of agility, as in the antics of the 

 March hare. In some cases the males have special decorations which 

 are shown off at the courting time, as when the Elephant Seal 

 inflates the big hood above his snout. It may also be that the fierce 

 combats between rival males, well known in stags, antelopes, and 

 sea-lions, may sometimes serve to excite the females if they stand 



