ORNITHOLOGICAL LITERATURE 
189 
Species, proposed a form of selection to account 
for morphological and behavioral differences 
between the sexes within a species: sexual 
selection. Evolution by common descent quickly 
gained acceptance, but sexual selection by female 
choice faced significant skepticism and remained 
a discredited area of research on the fringe of 
evolutionary biology until the late 1970s, when it 
finally received its due as an important mecha¬ 
nism for species formation. So the story goes. 
Or does it? In Looking for a Few Good Males, 
Erika Milam seeks to replace what she calls this 
“eclipse narrative” of loss and recovery with a 
more complex one that stresses the broader 
scientific and social context in which sexual 
selection theory was debated. The result is a 
carefully researched, fascinating history of rich 
detail on a part of evolutionary biology that has so 
far garnered little attention among historians, 
scientists, and the public. This is a thoughtful 
book that appeals to anyone with an interest in 
animal behavior or the uneasy relationship 
between evolution science and the study of human 
social relationships. 
Milam begins by pinning the discomfort raised 
by Darwin’s theory of sexual selection upon the 
threat to human exceptionalism posed by cogni¬ 
tive choice in other animals. Darwin was explicit 
in Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to 
Sex : when evaluating the extravagant plumages 
and energetic displays of male pheasants (Phasia- 
nidae), for example, female pheasants compared 
competing males and chose the most beautiful 
from among them. Anticipating his readers’ 
discomfort Darwin reassured them that, although 
some of the lower animals undoubtedly possessed 
a sense of beauty and actively chose their mates, 
cultivated man (i.e., white Western man) repre¬ 
sented the pinnacle of an evolutionary progression 
of cognitive ability and aesthetic sense. Man alone 
was capable of rational choice. Most of Darwin’s 
colleagues, including Alfred Russell Wallace, co- 
discoverer of natural selection, rejected both 
choice and an aesthetic sense in other animals, 
preferring natural selection for male “vigor” as 
an explanation for male traits that attracted female 
attention. Unfortunately, the ladder of evolution¬ 
ary progress appealed to many 19th and 20th 
century readers, and framed (and constrained) the 
debate over sexual selection for years to come. 
Milam continues with a description of the state 
of animal behavior research in the decades leading 
up to the Second World War. Not surprisingly, 
much of the focus on sexual selection in Europe 
during that period centered on the eugenic 
potential for female choice to improve human 
populations, although interest understandably 
faded with the end of the war. Darwin’s attri¬ 
bution of aesthetic sense to animals had largely 
been abandoned while concerns over the en¬ 
croachment of animals upon the uniqueness of 
human cognitive ability remained. Despite excel¬ 
lent work by amateur biologists like George and 
Elizabeth Peckham (spiders) and William Pycraft 
(birds) that supported female choice and sexual 
selection, professional evolutionary biologists in¬ 
creasingly rejected conscious female choice for 
their mates in favor of physiological reactions to 
external (male displays) and internal (gonadal sex 
hormones) stimuli. 
Eventually, a critical shift in focus occurred 
from animal mating behavior as precursor to 
human behavior (the “ladder” metaphor) to 
animal mate choice and its effect on the process 
of evolution. This shift was accompanied by new 
methods that strove to create experimental 
conditions that mimicked nature as much as 
possible, and widened the scope of animal 
behavior science. Researchers increasingly fo¬ 
cused on the role that sexual selection might have 
in reinforcing or breaking down species bound¬ 
aries. Some (e.g., Gladwyn Kingsley Noble) 
reported evidence of female choice, while others 
(e.g., Lester Aronson), concluded that females 
mated randomly. 
Female mate choice, with the rise of ethology 
in postwar Britain, was rejected outright in favor 
of mechanistic models of behavior in which a 
stimulus (male behavior) overcame female inertia. 
Ethologists placed critical importance on the 
genetic basis of behaviors, which they saw as 
innate, ritualistic responses to environmental 
stimuli. This idea, coupled with advancements in 
experimental genetics, enabled animal behavior- 
ists like Claudine Petit and Lee Ehrman to 
investigate the impact of mating behavior on the 
genetic dynamics of populations and species. Both 
found strong evidence for female choice. None¬ 
theless, prominent evolutionists like Theodosius 
Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr continued to dis¬ 
count its importance for speciation. Finally Robert 
Trivers, in his paper “Parental Investment and 
Sexual Selection,” interpreted Petit and Ehrman’s 
results in the light of evolutionary game theory, 
and demonstrated that mate choice must be 
widespread as well as critically important for 
