Loves and Courtships of Birds. i 57 



of his own species, seems to be influenced just as much as the 

 female by the changes in his constitution at the rutting season. 

 The law is general, at all events as regards the vertebrata, 

 and obviously more or less present in lowlier forms. Again, 

 although the vocal and instrumental music of birds is most 

 likely a production of the noises and cries, from long habit, 

 and the excellence of some species over others, it has become 

 hereditary and inherent, so that the bird has recourse to its 

 song whenever it feels happy and comfortable. But there is no 

 accounting for musical taste in animals, and, if it comes to 

 this, even in man, when we think that the harshest and most 

 unmelodious noises may be the very reverse in the estimation 

 of those they are meant to please. 



Now with reference to the state of the generative organs 

 at the breeding season, I have found that, as a general 

 rule, the males of any one species show a regular and pro- 

 portionate enlargement ; but exceptions are not unfrequent, 

 which explains instances of unpaired birds, and what often 

 occurs, viz., that when a female or male of a mated pair is killed, 

 the survivor soon obtains another partner. In the case of the 

 chaffinch, bullfinch, and goldfinch, it is not uncommon to see 

 males and females unpaired at the breeding-time. I can 

 therefore well believe, with Mr. Darwin,* that " certain males 

 and females do not succeed during the proper season in 

 exciting each other's love, and consequently do not pair/' 

 This, I could imagine, is very common with old birds, just 

 as I noticed with aged bears on the Himalayas,! and is 

 the case also with the tiger, lion, etc., that when the animal 

 gets on in years it generally leads a life of celibacy, and 

 retires from the society of its species. 



Mr. Jenner Weir, % quoted^ by Darwin, says " he never 

 sees or hears the note of the wild bullfinch; yet when one 



* "Descent of Man," vol. ii., p. 107. 



t "Wanderings in India," p. 241 ; and Mr. Rohan, as we shall see in 

 the sequel, observed the same with water birds in the island of Anticosti. 



X " Descent of Man," vol ii., p. 105. 



