22O Habit and Instinct. 



will apply both to polygamous and monogamous species), 

 some must fail to find a mate. But whether the odd 

 males are weeded out through natural selection (being, if 

 we accept the somewhat extravagant suggestion of M. 

 Stolzmann,* overweighted with, or rendered conspicuous 

 by, adornment for that very purpose), or whether they 

 are rejected through failure to elicit the appropriate emo- 

 tional response, we do not know. 



Perhaps the most definite direct evidence of the 

 exercise of choice on the part of the female is that which 

 Darwin cites from Audubon.f This observer, who spent a 

 lifetime among the birds of the United States, " does not 

 doubt that the female deliberately chooses her mate. 

 Thus, speaking of a woodpecker, he says that the hen 

 is followed by half a dozen gay suitors, who continue 

 performing strange antics, ' until a marked preference is 

 shown for one.' The female of the red-winged starling 

 (Agelaius phoeniceus) is likewise pursued by several males, 

 'until, becoming fatigued, she alights, receives their 

 addresses, and soon makes a choice.' He describes also 

 how several male nightjars repeatedly plunge through the 

 air with astonishing rapidity, suddenly turning, and thus 

 making a singular noise ; ' but no sooner has the female 

 made her choice, than the other males are driven away.' 



* Proc. Zool Soc., 1885, p. 421. I say " somewhat extravagant," because 

 it would appear that natural selection by weeding out the more adorned and 

 leaving only the less adorned to breed would, in the absence of preferential 

 mating, have left us little or no adornment to discuss. Again, we must ask 

 M. Stolzmann this question : By what process of elimination under natural 

 selection have the advantageous adornments been produced ? Upholders of 

 sexual selection have not failed to realize the disadvantageousness of 

 secondary sexual characters, but have assumed that the disadvantages are 

 outweighed by the superior acceptability, as mates, of their possessors. 



t " Descent of Man," vol. ii. part ii. chap. xiv. pp. 128-129, 2nd edit., 

 1888. The citations from Audubon, " Ornithological Biography," vol. i. pp. 

 191, 349 ; vol. ii. pp. 42, 275. 



