or more strictly can modify the beauty originally acquired by the
parent species, can give to the Sebright bantam a new and elegant
plumage, an erect and peculiar carriage so it appears that female birds
in a state of nature, have by a long selection of the more attractive
males, added to their beauty or other attractive qualities. No doubt
this implies powers of discrimination and taste on the part of the
female which will at first appear extremely improbable; but by the
facts to be adduced hereafter, I hope to be able to shew that the
females actually have these powers. When, however, it is said that the
lower animals have a sense of beauty, it must not be supposed that such
sense is comparable with that of a cultivated man, with his multiform
and complex associated ideas. A more just comparison would be between
the taste for the beautiful in animals, and that in the lowest savages,
who admire and deck themselves with any brilliant, glittering, or
curious object.
From our ignorance on several points, the precise manner in which
sexual selection acts is somewhat uncertain. Nevertheless if those
naturalists who already believe in the mutability of species, will read
the following chapters, they will, I think, agree with me, that sexual
selection has played an important part in the history of the organic
world. It is certain that amongst almost all animals there is a
struggle between the males for the possession of the female. This fact
is so notorious that it would be superfluous to give instances. Hence
the females have the opportunity of selecting one out of several males,
on the supposition that their mental capacity suffices for the exertion
of a choice. In many cases special circumstances tend to make the
struggle between the males particularly severe. Thus the males of our
migratory birds generally arrive at their places of breeding before the
females, so that many males are ready to contend for each female. I am
informed by Mr. Jenner Weir, that the bird-catchers assert that this is
invariably the case with the nightingale and blackcap, and with respect
to the latter he can himself confirm the statement.
Mr. Swaysland of Brighton has been in the habit, during the last forty
years, of catching our migratory birds on their first arrival, and he
has never known the females of any species to arrive before their
males. During one spring he shot thirty-nine males of Ray s wagtail
(Budytes Raii) before he saw a single female. Mr. Gould has ascertained
by the dissection of those snipes which arrive the first in this
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