Explanation of Sex-disproportion. 177 



ceded so well, it seems almost a waste of means to 

 proceed as far as they have done in reducing the size 

 of the eggs. It seems indeed a waste, and worse, 

 unless the Darwinians will admit that, by the more 

 elaborate process, they have done more than survive 

 — that is, have gained some additional element of 

 enjoyment, ease or leisure. It does not seem that 

 this is the case with our cuckoos (canorus) ; they 

 are more pressed and put to it than almost any other 

 bird, and have sacrificed wholly that joy of brooding, 

 which seems the one taste of heaven for most other 

 birds, and also strictly the joys of true courtship and 

 mating. Besides, other cuckoos, and some of them 

 of larger make, succeed equally well, though their 

 eggs remain the natural size, or size proportioned to 

 that of the bird. And what, if in the severe pro- 

 cess of nature in modifying the oviduct, and, in- 

 deed, the whole system, especially of the female bird 

 — robbing her of the joys of true mating, brooding, 

 etc. — you have the explanation of the great dispro- 

 portion in number of the sexes that we see in our 

 common cuckoos now, so very marked and extra- 

 ordinary, that, instead of mating, there is promiscuity; 

 instead of sequential seasonal companionship, there is 

 polyandry ; and, instead of brooding and rearing 

 young, sheer parasitism and imposture. Survival of 

 the fittest ! Well, yes, but here it lands you in a 

 quandary. The males have more survived than the 

 females, who most deserved to survive, as having 

 undergone the greatest functional change in order of 

 it. At least in the proportion of four to one, on my 

 lowest reckoning, from observations made ; of seven 

 to one on my highest : so that your "survival of the 



