346 SEXUAL SELECTION : MAX. [Part IL 



body, as with several species of Baboons.' We may in- 

 deed conclude from Avliat we know of the jealousy of all 

 male quadrupeds, arnMjd, as many of them are, with spe- 

 cial weapons for battling with their rivals, that promis- 

 cuous intercourse in a state of nature is extremely improb- 

 able. The pairing may not last for life, but only for each 

 birth ; yet if the males which are the strongest and best 

 able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young 

 offspring, were to select the more attractive females, this 

 would suffice for the work of sexual selection. 



Therefore, if we look far enough back in the stream of 

 time, it is extremely improbable that primeval men and 

 women lived promiscuously together. Judging from the 

 social habits of man as he now exists, and from most sav- 

 ages being polygamists, the most probable view is that 

 primeval man aboriginally lived in small communities, 

 each with as many Avives as he could support and obtain, 

 whom he would have jealously guarded against all other 

 men. Or he may have lived with several wives by him- 

 self, like the Gorilla ; for all the natives " agree that but 

 one adult male is seen in a band ; when the young male 

 grows up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the 

 strongest, by killing and driving out the others, estab- 

 lishes himself as the head of the community." * The 

 younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, 

 would, when at last successful in finding a partner, pre- 

 vent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same 

 family. 



' Brehm (' Illust. Thierleben,' B. i. p. 77) says CynoccpJialm hama- 

 dryas lives in great troops containing twice as many adult females as 

 adult males. See Rengger on American polygamous species, and Owen 

 (' Anat. of Vertebrates,' vol. ili. p. 746) on American monogamous spe- 

 cies. Other references might be added. 



* Dr. Savage, in ' Boston Journal of Nat. Hist.' vol. v. 1845-47, p. 

 423. 



