292 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



animals having stronger passions than the females. Hence 

 it is the males that fight together and sedulously display their 

 charms before the females ; and the victors transmit their su- 

 periority to their male offspring. Why both sexes do not 

 thus acquire the characters of their fathers will be consid- 

 ered hereafter. That the males of all mammals eagerly 

 pursue the females is notorious to every one. So it is with 

 birds; but many cock birds do not so much pursue the hen 

 as display their plumage, perform strange antics, and pour 

 forth their song in her presence. The male in the few fish 

 observed seems much more eager than the female ; and the 

 same is true of alligators, and apparently of Batrachians. 

 Throughout the enormous class of insects, as Kirby re- 

 marks," "the law is that the male shall seek the female." 

 Two good authorities, Mr. Blackwall and Mr. 0. Spence 

 Bate, tell me that the males of spiders and crustaceans are 

 more active and more erratic in their habits than the fe- 

 males. When the organs of sense or locomotion are present 

 in the one sex of insects and crustaceans and absent in the 

 other, or when, as is frequently the case, they are more 

 highly developed in the one than in the other, it is, as far 

 as I can discover, almost invariably the male which retains 

 such organs, or has them most developed; and this shows 

 that the male is the more active member in the courtship 

 of the sexes. "" 



The female, on the other hand, with the rarest ex- 

 ceptions, is less eager than the male. As the illustrious 

 Hunter'" long ago observed, she generally "requires to be 

 courted"; she is coy, and may often be seen endeavoring 



" Kirby and Spenoe, "Introduction to Entomology," vol. iii., 1826, p. 342. 



" One parasitic Hymenopterous Insect (Westwood, "Modern Class, of 

 Insects," vol. ii. p. 160) forms an exception to the rule, as the male has rudi- 

 mentary wings, and never quits the cell in -which it is born, while the female 

 has well-developed wings. Audouin believes that the females of this species 

 are impregnated by the males which are born in the same cells with them; but 

 it is much more probable that the females visit other cells, so that close inter- 

 breeding is thus avoided. We shall hereafter meet in various classes with 

 a few exceptional cases in which the female, instead of the male, is the seeker 

 and wooer. 



=» "Essays and Observations," edited by Owen, vol. i., J.861, p. 194. 



