If the birds are in bondage in certain respects, they preserve their freedom and power of choice in others, and they exercise both more joyously and unrestrainedly than man himself.
No bird voluntarily renounces the joys of love; very few evade the bonds of marriage; but everyone seeks to attain to and enjoy love as early as possible. Before it has laid aside its youthful dress the young bird has learnt to recognize and respect the distinctions of sex; much earlier than that, the young male fights with his fellows as if in boyish wantonness; as soon as he is full-grown he woos ardently and persistently some female of his own species. No male bird condemns himself to bachelorhood, no female bird hardens her heart against a deserving suitor. For lack of a mate, the male wanders restlessly and aimlessly over land and sea; for a worthy mate the female forgets pain and oppressive grief, however deep these may have been; for the wooer who seems to her most worthy she breaks even her conjugal bonds.
Every female bird attains to the possession of a husband, but not every male readily succeeds in gaining a wife. Even among birds so great a good must be sought after and striven for. On an average, there are more males than females, and many males are obliged to suffer the severest misfortune which can befall them, and to live, at least temporarily, unmated. For the great majority of birds, celibacy is a state of torment from which they strive with all their strength to escape. So they traverse wide tracts in search of a mate, seeking diligently, and when they imagine they have found one, wooing with equal ardour, whether she be maid, wife, or widow. If these wanderings were usually fruitless, they would not take place so regularly as they do.
In wooing their mates, the males exhaust all the charms with which nature has endowed them. According to his species and capacity each brings his best gifts into play, each seeks to show his best side, to reveal all his amiability, to surpass in brilliance others of his kind. This desire increases with the hope of fulfilment; his love intoxicates him, throws him into ecstasies. The older he is the more remarkably does he conduct himself, the more self-confident does he appear, the more impetuously does he strive for the reward of love. The proverb, “There are no fools like old fools”, does not apply in his case, for it is but rarely that age condemns him to weakness and incapacity; on the contrary, it strengthens all his capabilities and increases his energy by mature experience. Little wonder then that at least the younger females prefer the older males, and that these woo, if not more ardently, at least more confidently than their younger rivals.
The means by which a male bird declares his love and conducts his courtship are very various, but, naturally, they always accord with his most prominent gifts. One woos with his song, another with his wings, this one with his bill, and that with his foot; one displays all the magnificence of his plumage, another some special decoration, and a third some otherwise unused accomplishment. Serious birds indulge in play and joke and dignified pranks; silent ones chatter, quiet ones become restless, gentle ones combative, timid ones bold, cautious ones careless: in short, all show themselves in an unwonted light. Their whole nature appears changed, for all their movements are more active, more excited than usual, and their conduct differs from their ordinary behaviour in every respect; they are possessed by an intoxication which increases the elasticity of their nature to such a degree that no flagging is ever perceptible. They deprive themselves of sleep, or reduce it to a minimum without weariness, and while awake they exert all their powers to the utmost without fatigue.
All birds with a voice utter clear, articulate notes in their courtship, and their song is nothing more than a supplication or exultation of love. Our poet’s words:
“Hushed is the nightingale’s lay,
Which gladdened our hearts in spring;
’Tis only in love’s heyday
That we hear its minstrels sing”,