A CITY OF BIRDS 71 



also pairing for life. For starlings are one of the most 

 social of all birds, and if the marital identity is not 

 lost in the immense communal gatherings of winter, 

 it is the more likely to be maintained among species 

 less gregarious. There is no practical reason why the 

 sexual should run counter to the social instinct, and 

 linnets, sheld-drake, rooks (as egrets, weaver-birds, flam- 

 ingoes, ibises, etc., among foreign birds, not to mention 

 most of the sea-birds) preserve the latter even when 

 the sexual excitement is most intense in spring. It 

 is indeed still more wonderful that the herding instinct 

 should not swamp all closer individual ties rather than 

 vice versa, but I believe that if more evidence were 

 collected on this head, it would be proved what we can 

 only now divine or test in a few species, that many 

 monogamous birds are faithful to their mates and do 

 not forget them even when circumstances separate them 

 for a while (as with chaffinches in some districts and 

 some migrants where the males arrive before the females), 

 or when the sense of community is in full flood. Why not ? 

 Why should we assume in our arrogance that love's fidelity 

 is a sole moral privilege of the human genus, and that in 

 the non-human races, genuine, durable love is only a fancy 

 name for the reproductive instinct. It may be that 

 Courthope {Paradise of Birds) was not too far wrong : — 



Their bonds never gall, 



Though the leaves shoot and fall, 



And the seasons roll round in their course, 



For their marriage each year 



Grows more lovely and dear. 



And they know not decrees of Divorce. 



But if more birds than we think choose a partner for 

 life, the business of wooing must surely be much more 

 important than we suppose.^ Even among polygamous 

 species like ruffs, birds of paradise, etc., the wonderful 

 colours and ornaments acquired through sexual selection 

 could not have been thus evolved if pairing were the 



1 See Mr. Julian Huxley's admirable paper in the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society upon the courtship of the Great Crested 

 Grebe. It is something very like the wooing and marriage of 

 human couples. 



