22 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



delicately, veiled according to custom ; nor is it artificially 

 fostered as among civilized communities by stimulating 

 food and the crowding together of large numbers of both 

 sexes in artificial surroundings. Rather it is a natural, 

 rhythmical, highly emotional state, which gathering force 

 inhibits the ordinary emotions, or, rather, overrides them, 

 begetting an intensity of passion which brooks no control. 

 It demands, without parleying, or mincing matters, 

 what is really the object of courtship among the civilized 

 human communities — the consummation of the nuptial 

 ceremony. The term " Courtship " is a Euphemism. 

 Nevertheless, bearing this in mind, it may conveniently 

 be used in these pages. 



We cannot hope to understand the springs of courtship 

 in the human race from what we observe in present-day 

 society, or even from what we have gleaned thereon from 

 the records of remote ages. We must get back, so far as 

 is possible, to the very dawn of the human race : to that 

 period of man's evolution when his conduct was con- 

 trolled by purely savage instincts. But even then the 

 mark of the beast must have been fading out. His most 

 valuable asset, his larger brain, even then gave him an 

 advantage over the Apes, his near relations, and over 

 the beasts of the field which he had begun to bring into 

 subjection. We may assume that like his anthropoid 

 relations, he was of a solitary, nomadic disposition, 

 wandering in small parties from place to place as fancy 

 or food determined. His advance to this stage started 

 when, by the activity of his enlarging brain, he began to 

 be oppressed by the gloom of the forest, and drawn by the 

 fascination of more open country, and the ever-varying 

 scenes which exploration brought him. But this life 

 begot new needs and new desires. Hitherto, hunger, 



