8 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



to maintain a place in the sun for the individual in which 

 these momentous changes are going on. But it is not 

 enough that the individual should be in " working order " ; 

 it must be in harmony with all the conditions on which 

 existence depends. And the standard of this harmony- 

 is set by that very exacting arbiter of life and death, 

 " Natural Selection." It is not enough that the instincts 

 in regard to this or that habit should be keen, or that this 

 or that particular organ of the body should be efficient 

 — a certain minimum, all-round, standard of efficiency 

 is demanded, or elimination follows. It is through this 

 instability of " temperament," this tendency to vary 

 in infinite directions, that the balance between the 

 individual and the environment is maintained. Evolution 

 follows the line of least resistance. 



The little boy who remarked that it must be " fiddling 

 work, making flies," was more sage than he knew. The 

 complex web of factors which even a fly represents are 

 beyond the grasp of human understanding. But it is 

 clear that the reproductive instincts, and the emotions 

 they beget, have played, and play, a tremendous part 

 in the evolution of the higher animals. 



Those whose business it is, for one reason or another, to 

 study these emotions know well that " mate-hunger " may 

 be as ravenous as food-hunger, and that, exceptions apart, 

 it is immensely more insistent in the males than in the 

 females. But for this, reproduction in many species could 

 not take place : for the sexes often live far apart, and 

 mates are only to be won after desperate conflict with 

 powerful rivals no less inflamed. Thus it is idle to speak 

 of an equality between the sexes in this matter, in regard 

 to the human race. Dogmatism, and the frequent 

 repetition of pretty platitudes, will not alter what Nature 



