COURTSHIP OF BIRDS 



IN most birds the amatory period is sharply punctuated. 

 Their love is seasonal and part of the Spring. It 

 becomes parental, laps the family in its folds, and then it 

 seems to wane away into little more than kin-feeling, except 

 in those birds that are monogamous and lifelong com- 

 panions. 



Partly, perhaps, because the time of ardent love is so 

 sharply punctuated, the seasonal expression of it is more 

 striking than in most other creatures. We see love con- 

 densed, so that for a time it sublimes the whole life. The 

 mood changes, the feathers change, the voice changes, the 

 very movements change, under the pervasive influence of 

 love. 



Many male birds acquire their special characteristics of 

 colour and plumage, of song and flight, only as they approach 

 the crest of the wave of adolescence, and some only retain 

 their full glory while the love-impulse lasts. Some cock- 

 birds put on long plumes, feathery tresses, brightly coloured 

 combs and wattles, top-knots and curious markings, which 

 they display before their desired mates with what seem to us, 

 from a considerable mental distance, like emotions of love and 

 vanity. Others vie with their rivals in fierce tournaments, 

 and many try to sing their neighbours down. Some indulge 

 in quaint strutting dances, and others in elaborate displays of 

 their flying powers. Especially on the male side there is an 

 exaltation of the whole life physical as well as psychical. 



The whole subject of preferential mating among animals. 



