368 DR. VAN DYCK ON SYRIAN STREET-DOGS. _[Apr. 18, 
In order to ascertain whether female animals ever or often exhibit 
a decided preference for certain males, I formerly inquired from 
some of the greatest breeders in England, who had no thoretical 
views to support and who had ample experience ; and I have given 
their answers, as well as some published statements, in my ‘ Descent 
of Man’'. ‘The facts there given clearly show that with dogs and 
other animals the females sometimes prefer in the most decided 
manner particular males—but that it is very rare that a male will 
not accept any female, though such cases do occur. The following 
statement, taken from the ‘ Voyage of the Vega,”’ indirectly supports 
in a striking manner the above conclusion. Nordenskidld says :— 
‘* We had two Scotch collies with us on the ‘ Vega.’ They at first 
frightened the natives very much with their bark. To the dogs of 
the Chukches they soon took the same superior standing as the 
European claims for himself in relation to the savage. The dog was 
distinctly preferred by. the female Chukch canine population, and 
that too without the fights to which such favour on the part of the 
fair commonly gives rise. A numerous canine progeny of mixed 
Scotch-Chukch breed has arisen at Pitlekay. The young dogs had 
a complete resemblance to their father; and the natives were quite 
charmed with them.” 
What the attractions may be which give an advantage to certain 
males in wooing in the above several cases, whether general appear- 
ance, such as colour and form, or vigour and strength, or gestures, 
voice, or odour, can rarely be even conjectured; but whatever they 
may be, they would be preserved and augmented in the course of 
many generations, if the females of the same species or race, inhabit- 
ing the same district, retained during successive generations approxi- 
mately the same general disposition and taste; and this does not 
seem improbable. Nor is it indispensable that all the females should 
have exactly the same tastes: one female might be more attracted 
by some one characteristic in the male, and another female by a 
different one; and both, if not incompatible, would be gradually 
acquired by the males. Little as we can judge what are the charac- 
teristics which attract the female, yet, in some of the cases recorded 
by me, it seemed clearly to be colour; in other cases previous 
familiarity with a particular male; in others exactly the reverse, or 
novelty. With respect to the first appearance of the peculiarities 
which are afterwards augmented through sexual selection, this of 
course depends on the strong tendency in all parts of all organisms 
to present slight individual differences, and in some organisms to 
vary in a plain manner. Evidence has also been given in my book on 
Variation under Domestication showing that male animals are more 
liable to vary than females ; and this would be highly favourable to 
sexual selection. Manifestly every slight individual difference and 
each more conspicuous variation depends on definite though unknown 
* The Descent of Man, second edit. (1874), part ii. Chap. xvii. pp. 522-525. 
See also Chap. xiv., on choice in pairing shown by female birds, and on their 
appreciation of beauty,, 
* «The Voyage of the Vega,’ Eng. translat. (1881), vol. ii. p. 97. 
