' I am convinced that any student of the subject who will cast aside his books 

 supposing that they have not already bred a habit in his mind of seeing only "in accord- 

 ance with verbal statement " and go directly to nature, to note the actions of animals 

 for himself actions which, in many cases, appear to lose all significance when set down in 

 writing the result of such independent investigation will be a conviction that conscious 

 sexual selection on the part of the female is not the cause of music and dancing perform- 

 ances in birds, nor of the brighter colours and ornaments that distinguish the male.' 



The Naturalist in La Plata, by W. H. HUDSON, p. 287. 



