effect as to get the better of everything else. But the male did not
require this, the female being an animal somewhat similar to himself,
was sufficient to rouse him. (33. Essays and Observations, by J.
Hunter, edited by Owen, 1861, vol. i. p. 194.)
In an earlier chapter we have seen that the mental powers of the higher
animals do not differ in kind, though greatly in degree, from the
corresponding powers of man, especially of the lower and barbarous
races; and it would appear that even their taste for the beautiful is
not widely different from that of the Quadrumana. As the negro of
Africa raises the flesh on his face into parallel ridges or
cicatrices, high above the natural surface, which unsightly deformities
are considered great personal attractions (34. Sir S. Baker, The Nile
Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867.); as negroes and savages in many parts
of the world paint their faces with red, blue, white, or black bars, so
the male mandrill of Africa appears to have acquired his
deeply-furrowed and gaudily-coloured face from having been thus
rendered attractive to the female. No doubt it is to us a most
grotesque notion that the posterior end of the body should be coloured
for the sake of ornament even more brilliantly than the face; but this
is not more strange than that the tails of many birds should be
especially decorated.
With mammals we do not at present possess any evidence that the males
take pains to display their charms before the female; and the elaborate
manner in which this is performed by male birds and other animals is
the strongest argument in favour of the belief that the females admire,
or are excited by, the ornaments and colours displayed before them.
There is, however, a striking parallelism between mammals and birds in
all their secondary sexual characters, namely in their weapons for
fighting with rival males, in their ornamental appendages, and in their
colours. In both classes, when the male differs from the female, the
young of both sexes almost always resemble each other, and in a large
majority of cases resemble the adult female. In both classes the male
assumes the characters proper to his sex shortly before the age of
reproduction; and if emasculated at an early period, loses them. In
both classes the change of colour is sometimes seasonal, and the tints
of the naked parts sometimes become more vivid during the act of
courtship. In both classes the male is almost always more vividly or
strongly coloured than the female, and is ornamented with larger crests
567