JUST POSSIBLE 235 



pestered by the affectionate behaviour of the female : 

 and at the very same time that the male eider- 

 ducks are constantly fighting, and often quite mob 

 the females, one may see one of these females go 

 through quite frantic actions, on the water, first 

 before one male, and then another, which actions, 

 though they seem to point all in one direction, yet 

 meet with no response. Yet the eider-duck is one 

 of those birds the male of which is highly adorned, 

 and the female quite plain. There is, I think, a 

 strong tendency to ignore or forget things which 

 are not in harmony with what seems a plain, straight- 

 forward law, that one has never thought of doubting. 

 But every fact ought to be noted and its proper 

 value accorded it. The sexual relations of birds 

 are, I think, full of interest, and it is, particularly, in 

 regard to those species, the sexes of which are alike, 

 or nearly so, that these ought to be studied. There 

 is a distinct reason, as it appears to me, why, in the 

 contrary case, the males should be the more eager, 

 which reason does not exist in the other, and it is 

 just in this other, where one cannot, as a rule, in field 

 observation, tell the male from the female, that it is 

 most difficult to know what really goes on. Fight- 

 ing amongst male birds, in whatever fact physical 

 or psychological it may have originated, is, in itself, 

 distinct from the sexual passion, and in it, moreover, 

 a large amount of energy is expended. It seems just 

 possible, therefore, that some male birds, as they have 

 become more and more habitual fighters, have, owing 

 to that very cause, lost, rather than gained, in the 

 strength of the primary sexual impulse, whereas the 

 female, having nothing to divert her from this, may 



