HUMAN TRAITS IN THE ANIMALS 



what determines the choice of the male and sets him 

 in pursuit of a particular female is a question that 

 greatly interests me. Does the matter turn upon 

 some complementary variation too subtle for us to 

 perceive ? The mating of birds certainly seems like 

 an act of choice; but just what determines it, how 

 shall we find that out ? Behold the sparrows in the 

 street, three or four males apparently in a scrim- 

 mage with one female, surrounding her and play- 

 fully assaulting her, with spread plumage and ani- 

 mated chirping and chattering, while she, the centre 

 of the group, strikes right and left, in a serious, angry 

 mood, at her would-be suitors. What does it mean ? 

 Or, the robins in the spring, rushing across the lawn 

 and forming sudden rough-and-tumble groups with 

 a struggling and indignant female in the centre, or 

 gleefully screaming, and quickly iand apparently 

 amicably separating ? In all such cases the hen bird 

 alone wears an angiy and insulted air. What indig- 

 nity has been put uppn her? I know of nothing in 

 human courtship analogous to this tumultuous and 

 hilarious pursuit of the females by the cock spar- 

 rows and robins. 



The gregarious instinct of birds and mammals 

 does not differ essentially, as I see, from the same 

 instinct in man, except that in man it is often for 

 cooperation or mutual protection, while with the 

 lower animals it seems purely social. Many birds 

 flock in the fall and winter that live in pairs during 

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