48 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



confined to what we may call the " Courting " season, as 

 is the roar of the stag, but that they are heard nightly 

 at dusk. They may be resumed again at dawn, and 

 re-awakened when thunder-clouds gather. They have 

 become the normal method of giving vent to excitement, 

 and probably are intensified when isolated males are 

 desirous of discovering the whereabouts of females equally 

 anxious to find a mate. 



Among the Apes we meet, as with the human species, 

 with both monogamy and polygamy. But it would be 

 dangerous to assume that the reasons for polygamy are 

 the same in both. Polygamy, indeed, has by no means 

 always the same significance. In the most primitive, 

 half-human races of the past, as with the man-Hke Apes 

 to-day, polygamy is determined by accident rather than 

 choice. These extinct peoples, like the great anthropoids, 

 were normally monogamous, but on the death of a male 

 in conflict with his neighbour, or from other causes, his 

 mate would probably of her own free will seek out the 

 nearest male and even if he were already mated would 

 be at once adopted into the family circle. This certainly 

 happens in the case of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee to-day. 

 But among living races of mankind, both savage and 

 civilized, multiplicity of wives is a matter of choice on 

 the part of the male, and in many cases to achieve this 

 females from other tribes have to be secured — either by 

 purchase or conquest. With the lower apes, or " mon- 

 keys," polygamy only obtains among gregarious species ; 

 and either because the birth-rate of the females exceeds that 

 of the males, or because a considerable number of young 

 males are killed annually by exciting the jealousy of the 

 older males, who are exceedingly pugnacious. 



