144 CHARLES DARWIN 



CHAPTER H. 



THE THEORY OF COURTSHIP. 



IN the same volumes with the c Descent of Man ' Darwin 

 included his admirable treatise on sexual selection. 

 This form of selection he had already dealt with briefly 

 in the ' Origin of Species ; ' but as in his opinion it was 

 largely instrumental in producing the minor differences 

 which separate one race of men from another, he found 

 it necessary to enlarge and expand it in connection with 

 his account of the rise and progress of the human 

 species. 



Among many animals, and especially in the higher 

 classes of animals, the males and females do not mate 

 together casually ; there is a certain amount of selection 

 or of courtship. In some cases, as with deer and 

 antelopas, the males fight with one another for the 

 possession of the females. In other cases, as with the 

 peacock and the humming-birds, the males display their 

 beauty and their skill before the eyes of the assembled 

 females. In the first instance, the victor obtains the 

 mates; in the second instance, the mates themselves 

 select from the group the handsomest and most person- 

 ally pleasing competitor. Sexual selection, of which 

 these are special cases, dspends on the advantage 



