THE EVOLUTION OF A FATHER 381 



these special circumstances were. Why should 

 animals have specific dates at all ? The clue will 

 be found if we examine carefully what these dates 

 are and the reasons Nature has had for choosing 

 them. Some wise principle must underlie this, or 

 it would not be the universal rule it is. The pairing 

 time with Birds, as everyone knows, occurs in the 

 Spring. With Reptiles this is also the case ; but 

 among Mammals each species has a season peculiar 

 to itself, every separate month being selected by 

 one or other, and invariably adhered to. " The 

 bat pairs in January and February ; the wild camel 

 in the desert to the east of Lake Lob-nor, from the 

 middle of January nearly to the end of February ; 

 the Canis Azarae and the Indian bison in winter ; 

 the weasel in March ; the kulan from May to July ; 

 the musk-ox at the end of August ; the elk, in the 

 Baltic Provinces, at the end of August, and, in 

 Asiatic Russia, in September or October ; the wild 

 Yak in Tibet in September; the reindeer in Norway 

 at the end of September ; the badger in October ; 

 the Capra pyrenaica in November ; the chamois, 

 the musk-deer, and the orongo-antelope in Novem- 

 ber and December ; the wolf, from the end of 

 December to the middle of February."^ It might 

 seem that no law governed these various dates, 

 1 Westermarck's History of Human Marriage, p. 26. 



