member in the courtship of the sexes. (19. One parasitic Hymenopterous
insect (Westwood, Modern Class. of Insects, vol. ii. p. 160) forms an
exception to the rule, as the male has rudimentary wings, and never
quits the cell in which it is born, whilst the female has
well-developed wings. Audouin believes that the females of this species
are impregnated by the males which are born in the same cells with
them; but it is much more probable that the females visit other cells,
so that close inter-breeding is thus avoided. We shall hereafter meet
in various classes, with a few exceptional cases, in which the female,
instead of the male, is the seeker and wooer.)
The female, on the other hand, with the rarest exceptions, is less
eager than the male. As the illustrious Hunter (20. Essays and
Observations, edited by Owen, vol. i. 1861, p. 194.) long ago
observed, she generally requires to be courted; she is coy, and may
often be seen endeavouring for a long time to escape from the male.
Every observer of the habits of animals will be able to call to mind
instances of this kind. It is shewn by various facts, given hereafter,
and by the results fairly attributable to sexual selection, that the
female, though comparatively passive, generally exerts some choice and
accepts one male in preference to others. Or she may accept, as
appearances would sometimes lead us to believe, not the male which is
the most attractive to her, but the one which is the least distasteful.
The exertion of some choice on the part of the female seems a law
almost as general as the eagerness of the male.
We are naturally led to enquire why the male, in so many and such
distinct classes, has become more eager than the female, so that he
searches for her, and plays the more active part in courtship. It would
be no advantage and some loss of power if each sex searched for the
other; but why should the male almost always be the seeker? The ovules
of plants after fertilisation have to be nourished for a time; hence
the pollen is necessarily brought to the female organs being placed on
the stigma, by means of insects or the wind, or by the spontaneous
movements of the stamens; and in the Algae, etc., by the locomotive
power of the antherozooids. With lowly-organised aquatic animals,
permanently affixed to the same spot and having their sexes separate,
the male element is invariably brought to the female; and of this we
can see the reason, for even if the ova were detached before
fertilisation, and did not require subsequent nourishment or
246