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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



and derivation, I attempted to bring together what I knew of the 

 matter of mating among animals generally, carrying my investi- 

 gations into the various groups of fishes, reptiles, birds and mam- 

 mals. It is a very well known fact that with respect to our own 

 species, we meet in one part of the world or another, people who 

 practice every form of sexual relation, to say nothing of what is 

 met with along the lines of pervertism in such matters. Even in 

 the United States, we meet with any number of cases of marriage 

 devoid of all ceremony (anarchists); of free love; of monogamy; 

 of promiscuity; of polygamy and bigamy; of legalized concu- 

 binage (South Carolina); and of the divers unnatural relations 

 of the sexual perverts and inverts. Polyandry, that rare and 

 exceptional conjugal form, where the one wife has two or more 

 husbands, has never been instanced among us, so far as I am 

 aware. No such sexual association is met with among mammals 

 below man, and never among birds. 



It is in this latter class of vertebrates that we meet with some 

 of the purest types of, as well as some of the most interesting 

 examples of the conjugal relation, and it is to a comparative con- 

 sideration of some of these that the present article will be devoted. 



In reviewing the material for this purpose at hand, I have 

 drawn largely upon my own ornithological observations and 

 studies extending over a period of forty or more years. Then I 

 have consulted such works upon ornithology as I find in my 

 private library. With respect to the latter, I am obliged to con- 

 fess my surprise at the inadequacy of the accounts, and the marked 

 variance often exemplified in the statements of different authors 

 of recognized standing and reputation on the subject. Very few 

 books at my command pretend to make any comparisons between 

 the mating habits of })irds and the marriage customs of various 

 peoples, but there arc a iVw . 



Beyond the matter of llic dillVivnt [.roccdiiivs of courtship in 

 the case of l)irds, tliciv arc no furtlicr (rrcinonials with them as 

 in tlic cast' of many, iiKh'cd, the niajority of the races of mankind. 

 So that, in the abstract, polynaniy in birds means exactly the 

 same thint;- as Imiium j>oly(iamy, and so on for monogamy, pro- 

 miscuity and other practices. Taken in the abstract, and barring 

 opinions to the contrary, many believe in the case of man, that 



