Music and Dancing in Nature. 285 



most perfect melody. Even in a single branch of 

 the true vocalists we may see it from the chirping 

 bunting, and noisy but timeless sparrow, to linnet 

 and goldfinch and canary. Not only do a large 

 majority of species show the singing instinct, or 

 form of display, in a primitive, undeveloped state, 

 but in that state it continues to show itself in the 

 young of many birds in which melody is most highly 

 developed in the adult. And where the develop- 

 ment has been solely in the male the female never 

 rises above that early stage ; in her lively chirpings 

 and little mock fights and chases, and other simple 

 forms which gladness takes in birds, as well as in 

 her plainer plumage, and absence of ornament, she 

 represents the species at some remote period. And 

 as with song so with antics and all set performances 

 aerial or terrestrial, from those of the whale and 

 the elephant to those of the smallest insect. 



Another point remains to be noticed, and that is 

 the greater frequency and fulness in displays of all 

 kinds, including song, during the love season. And 

 here Dr. Wallace's colour and ornament theory 

 helps us to an explanation. At the season of court- 

 ship, when the conditions of life are most favourable 

 vitality is at its maximum, and naturally it is then 

 that the proficiency in all kinds of dancing- an tics, 

 aerial and terrestrial, appears greatest, and that 

 melody attains its highest perfection. This applies 

 chiefly to birds, but even among birds there are 

 exceptions, as we have seen in the case of the field- 

 finch, Sycalis luteola. The love-excitement is 

 doubtless pleasurable to them, and it takes the 

 form in which keenly pleasurable emotions are 



