536 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



and rear young with individuals of a race (species) appar- 

 ently the most alien to themselves, as with their own stock." 



The Eev. W. D. Fox informs me that he possessed at the 

 same time a pair of Chinese geese {Anser cygnoides), and a 

 common gander with three geese. The two lots kept quite 

 separate, until the Chinese gander seduced one of the com- 

 mon geese to live with him. Moreover, of the young birds 

 hatched from the eggs of the common ge^se, only four were 

 pure, the other eighteen proving hybrids; so that the Chi- 

 nese gander seems to have had prepotent charms over the 

 common gander. I will give only one other case: Mr. Hew- 

 itt states that a wild-duck, reared in captivity, "after breed- 

 ing a couple of seasons with her own mallard, at once shook 

 him off on my placing a Pintail on the water. It was evi- 

 dently a case of love at first sight, for she swam about 

 the new-comer caressingly, though he appeared evidently 

 alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From 

 that hour she forgot her old partner. "Winter passed by, 

 and the next spring the Pintail seemed to have become a 

 convert to her blandishments, for they nested and produced ■ 

 seven or eight young ones." 



What the charm may have been in these several cases, 

 beyond mere novelty, we cannot even conjecture. Color, 

 however, sometimes comes into play; for in order to raise 

 hybrids from the siskin {Fringilla spinus) and the canary, 

 it is much the best plan, according to Bechstein, to place 

 birds of the same tint together. Mr. Jenner Weir turned 

 a female canary into his aviary, where there were male 

 linnets, goldfinches, siskins, greenfinches, chaffinches, and 

 other birds, in order to see which she would choose; but 

 there never was any doubt, and the greenfinch carried the 

 day. They paired and produced hybrid offspring. 



The fact of the female preferring to pair with one male 

 rather than with another of the same species, is not so likely 

 to excite attention as when this occurs, as we have just seen, 

 between distinct species. The former cases can best be ob- 

 served with domesticated or confined birds; but these are 



