478 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 



bably to this sort of operation by female birds, jealous of, or 

 longing for, masculine attention, that we owe the phrase so 

 commonly applied to certain human husbands, of being ' hen- 

 pecked.' So necessary are respect or attention from man to 

 certain irritable, jealous house pets, or menagerie captives 

 such as the felinse that dangerous fury is apt to be excited 

 in them by his simple indifference. 



Many birds and other animals take every pains to ensure 

 success in the display of their charms before the other sex, or 

 in efforts of whatever nature. They have a keen enjoyment 

 of triumph, and they celebrate victory, whatever be its 

 nature, in a variety of ways. There is the sense of triumph, 

 the air of triumph, the strut of triumph. But, on the 

 other hand, there is corresponding soreness or disappoint- 

 ment at non-success ; and failure, according to its nature, 

 may even beget melancholia, abstinence, marasmus and 

 death. 



The efforts of a male suitor to please or charm the female 

 to whom he pays court are not always received favourably. 

 On the contrary, his amatory attentions may be received 

 with disdain, anger, violence, or other forms of repulse ; and 

 unfortunately, one of these forms of ' rejected addresses ' is 

 cannibalism the devouring by the female of her lover. Thus 

 we are told that the ' female spider is, in many of the species, 

 much larger than the male. And a very remarkable danger 

 attends the amatory approaches of the latter as, if they are 

 not favourably received, he is not uncommonly killed and 

 eaten on the spot' [ c Chambers's Encyclopaedia ']. * Disap- 

 pointed affection ' is probably as common in other animals as 

 in man, ' jiltings ' by the fickle fair quite as frequent. 



In some cases the refusal of the attentions of the male 

 by the female may be altogether, or in some measure, his 

 fault. Thus young males are apt, as in man, to be forward, 

 officious, troublesome, impatient, over eager, unduly amorous ; 

 and this eagerness may even be morbid in its excess or 

 nature, leading to persecution of, and danger to, the female 

 selected for their attentions. 



In such cases it is not surprising that such addresses 

 should be avoided, repulsed or punished. But in other cases 



