their own species, so that they may be kept with several cocks during a
whole season, and not one egg out of forty or fifty will prove fertile.
On the other hand, with the long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), it
has been remarked, says M. Ekstrom, that certain females are much
more courted than the rest. Frequently, indeed, one sees an individual
surrounded by six or eight amorous males. Whether this statement is
credible, I know not; but the native sportsmen shoot these females in
order to stuff them as decoys. (32. Quoted in Lloyd s Game Birds of
Sweden, p. 345.)
With respect to female birds feeling a preference for particular males,
we must bear in mind that we can judge of choice being exerted only by
analogy. If an inhabitant of another planet were to behold a number of
young rustics at a fair courting a pretty girl, and quarrelling about
her like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he would, by the
eagerness of the wooers to please her and to display their finery,
infer that she had the power of choice. Now with birds the evidence
stands thus: they have acute powers of observation, and they seem to
have some taste for the beautiful both in colour and sound. It is
certain that the females occasionally exhibit, from unknown causes, the
strongest antipathies and preferences for particular males. When the
sexes differ in colour or in other ornaments the males with rare
exceptions are the more decorated, either permanently or temporarily
during the breeding-season. They sedulously display their various
ornaments, exert their voices, and perform strange antics in the
presence of the females. Even well-armed males, who, it might be
thought, would altogether depend for success on the law of battle, are
in most cases highly ornamented; and their ornaments have been acquired
at the expense of some loss of power. In other cases ornaments have
been acquired, at the cost of increased risk from birds and beasts of
prey. With various species many individuals of both sexes congregate at
the same spot, and their courtship is a prolonged affair. There is even
reason to suspect that the males and females within the same district
do not always succeed in pleasing each other and pairing.
What then are we to conclude from these facts and considerations? Does
the male parade his charms with so much pomp and rivalry for no
purpose? Are we not justified in believing that the female exerts a
choice, and that she receives the addresses of the male who pleases her
most? It is not probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is
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