COURTSHIP AMONG FISHES 69 



are among the Orissa shore-fishes that have a voice, 

 the noise seems to be made by grinding the bones of 

 the pharynx together, while the air-bladder, which 

 impinges on them, is inflated so as to act as a resonator. 



In some of our Orissa fishes the males were 

 decidedly more brilliant in colour, or more highly 

 ornamented in some other way, than the females. 

 This kind of difference between the sexes is a well- 

 known phenomenon throughout the animal kingdom, 

 and has been explained by Darwin as the gradual 

 result, through a long series of generations, of the 

 females of certain species deliberately choosing for 

 mates the handsomest males — just as certain classes 

 of civilised women are said to choose the richest men 

 for husbands. There can be little doubt that where 

 the intelligence is high, as among mammals, birds, and 

 the higher insects and Crustacea, there must be many 

 species whose individuals have both ideas of excellence 

 and sense enough to make choices ; and if w^e do not 

 usually attribute so much aesthetic and discriminative 

 faculty to fishes, it is perhaps because we do not 

 know enough about their habits. When we reflect, 

 however, that there are many species of fishes which 

 display sufficient parental care to build nests, or to 

 incubate their young in some special way, and that 

 there are not a few species which actually bring forth 

 their young alive after the manner of Eve, we shall 

 then, perhaps, be prepared to believe in the existence 



