The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands, with Some Notes on Seals—and Digressions

by Edmund Selous

An incident which I have recorded elsewhere seems to me to bear upon the foregoing remarks.[14] Here a stone-curlew that had been sitting quietly for some time rose and uttered some shrill cries, in obedience to which another came running up, and after the two, standing close together, had each assumed a remarkable and precisely similar posture, the nuptial rite was performed. Were it not that, even by the witnessing of this last, it is not always possible to differentiate the sexes of birds, I could say with certainty that it was the female stone-curlew, in this instance, that called up the male; but the very striking attitude which the birds assumed, and which, if it was not a sexual display, it is difficult to know what to call it, was identical in both. Again, in the case of a pair of crested grebes that I watched during two successive springs everything (and there was once something very striking) in the nature of an antic or display was indulged in equally by the male and female. Peewits, also, behave during the nuptial season in a very marked manner, both whilst flying and upon the ground, and as far as I can make out—though I will not here speak with certainty—the conduct of both sexes is the same throughout.

[14] Bird Watching, pp. 18-19.

The nuptial cries or notes of birds are a chief way in which the one sex, on the theory of sexual selection, endeavours to render itself pleasing to the other. When these charm our own ears to an extent which we think deserving of the name of song, it is usually the male alone that utters them, those uttered by the female not rising to the height of such a definition. To how great an extent this law prevails I have not the knowledge to say, but it is not universal. The female canary, robin, lark, and bullfinch all sing, especially when widowed, though their song is not equal to that of the male, whilst in the red oven-bird of Argentina both sexes frequently join one another for the express purpose of singing a duet. Surely in this last case, especially, if it be assumed that the song of the male is uttered with the purpose of pleasing the female, or has that effect, the converse ought also to be assumed: and if so, why should not the hens, as well as the cocks, be sometimes chosen for their song?

But all nuptial notes of birds are equally song, in the sense that they are uttered under the impulse of sexual passion, and many of these are the same in both the sexes. Here, again, there is a danger of assuming, without sufficient evidence, that the characteristic courting or love-note is uttered only by the male. A mistake of this kind has been made in the case of the nightjar—both sexes of which I have heard "churr" together on the nest—and no doubt in many other instances, including, very possibly, the cuckoo. In a vast number of cases, however, the cries of the two sexes during the love-season are known to be the same. They may not always, when this is the case, be either very wonderful or very beautiful, but to suppose that the nuptial actions and notes of male birds are intended to attract and charm the female only when they are of a very pronounced and extraordinary character, or very musical, would not be logical. They must be always directed to this end, if at all, and if the females indulge in the same gestures and utter the same sounds, their motive in doing so, and the effect produced by their doing it, should be the same, but directed towards, and acting upon, the male.

Why, then, should the male not exercise some choice, especially should there be, in addition, jealousy and competition amongst the females? As to this, it is not easy to imagine a desire on the part of one sex to please the other, unattended with jealousy, nor can jealousy exist without competition. We are not, however, confined to likelihood, for it is certain that the hen bird does sometimes court the cock and fight for him with rival hens, even in those cases where the cock alone is beautiful. In support of this I will quote some cases long ago brought forward by Darwin, though not as pointing in the direction in which they seem to me to point. Darwin, then, in his magnificent work, The Descent of Man—now, as it appears to me, little read and much required to be—writes as follows: "Mr. Hewitt states that a wild duck, reared in captivity, after breeding a couple of seasons with her own mallard, at once shook him off on my placing a male pintail on the water. It was evidently a case of love at first sight, for she swam about the new-comer caressingly, though he appeared evidently alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From that hour she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring the pintail seemed to have become a convert to her blandishments, for they nested and produced seven or eight young ones" (p. 415). (Here, then, we have a male as coy as a female, who is wooed and ultimately won.) Again: "With one of the vultures (Cathartes aura) of the United States, parties of eight, ten, or more males and females assemble on fallen logs, exhibiting the strongest desire to please mutually" (p. 418). (Audubon, I think, is here quoted.) Again: "On the other hand, Mr. Harrison Weir has himself observed, and has heard from several breeders, that a female pigeon will occasionally take a strong fancy for a particular male, and will desert her own mate for him. Some females, according to another experienced observer, Riedel, are of a profligate disposition, and prefer almost any stranger to their own mate" (pp. 418-419). I myself had once a pigeon of this feather, and so marked was her personality, and really and strangely profligate her acts, that I have never forgotten her. Again we have: "'Sir R. Heron states that the hens have frequently great preference to a particular peacock. They were all so fond of an old pied cock that one year, when he was confined, though still in view, they were constantly assembled close to the trellis-walls of his prison, and would not suffer a japaned peacock to touch them. On his being let out in the autumn, the oldest of the hens instantly courted him, and was successful in her courtship. The next year he was shut up in a stable, and then the hens all courted his rival.' Female birds not only exert a choice, but in some few cases they court the male and even fight together for his possession. (I, however, would demur to the word "few" and ask how much we really know about it.) Sir R. Heron states that with pea-fowl the first advances are always made by the female; something of the same kind takes place, according to Audubon, with the older females of the wild turkey. With the capercailzie the females flit round the male whilst he is parading at one of the places of assemblage, and solicit his attention" (pp. 418-419). What is this if not a double courtship? And the male capercailzie, if I remember rightly, is capricious in his selection of the hens. Again: "Mr. Bartlett believes that the lophophorus, like many other gallinaceous birds, is naturally polygamous, but two females cannot be placed in the same cage with a male, as they fight so much together" (p. 420). Finally we have this: "The following instance of rivalry is more surprising as it relates to bullfinches, which usually pair for life. Mr. Jenner Weir introduced a dull-coloured and ugly female into his aviary, and she immediately attacked another mated female so unmercifully that the latter had to be separated. The new female did all the courtship, and was at last successful, for she paired with the male; but after a time she met with a just retribution, for, ceasing to be pugnacious, she was replaced by the old female, and the male then deserted his new and returned to his old love" (p. 420).

How ill do such facts as the above accord with the theory that the male bird is too eager to exercise choice in regard to the female. Darwin also (p. 420) adduces evidence to show that the domestic cock prefers the younger to the older hens; that the male pheasant, when hybridised with the fowl, has the opposite taste, "is most capricious in his attachments, and, from some inexplicable cause, shows the most determined aversion to certain hens"; that some hens are quite unattractive, even to the males of their own species; and that, with the long-tailed duck, certain females are much more courted than the rest, of which last state of things I have, if I mistake not, seen a hint with the eider-duck. Again, then, what becomes of the supposed indiscriminate eagerness of the male? Has not this theory been accepted too unreservedly, and on a too slender foundation of evidence?

It is significant that most of the above-quoted observations were made on birds in confinement, or under domestication, in which states, of course, they are very much easier to watch. Of the intimate domestic habits of birds—that is to say, of most birds—in a wild state, we know, I believe, very little, and have assumed very much. I might give here two cases—I have elsewhere given some instances—of what appeared to me to be violent rivalry on the part of hen blackbirds; but I refer again to what I have noticed in regard to the nuptial habits of those sea-birds, the bright interior colouring of whose mouths I have drawn attention to, and endeavoured to account for.

To recapitulate. As the theory of sexual selection supposes that the one sex has been adorned and made beautiful in accordance with the taste and choice of the opposite one during the love season, we might expect that amongst those birds where the males are beautiful and the females plain, the more active part in courtship would be taken by the former; for this is the very road along which such beauty must have been gained. On the other hand, if the females had been equally ardent they would have arrived, by the same road, at the same, or a similar, goal. Therefore, in the above cases we ought to be prepared to find what we do find. But when the sexes, whether beautiful or not, resemble one another, there is not the same reason for supposing that the male alone actively courts, and since, in such cases, it is very difficult to tell by actual observation whether this is so, or not, we really know very little about the matter. Instead of knowing, we assume, and of two birds, either of which may be, as far as outward appearance goes, either the male or the female, that one which we see pursuing or paying court to the other is always the male in our eyes. Yet even amongst those species where the male alone is adorned, courting on the part of the female is by no means unknown, and rival hens sometimes fight for the cock. How much more, therefore, is this likely to be the case where the sexes are alike, and where, consequently, as already explained, there is not the same primâ facie probability of one only (the male) having been selected!

The fact that both the male and female of various birds of this class utter the same cries, and indulge in the same antics, during the nuptial season, is some evidence that either sex tries to please—i.e. courts—the other; for similar actions and utterances must be taken as implying a similar psychology—they are not like colours or markings—and we cannot, therefore, conceive of them as being merely transmitted, by the laws of inheritance, through the male to the female, and having a mental significance only in the case of the former, or conversely. A bad constitution—the result of intemperance—might descend through the father to the temperate daughter; but if the habit of drinking be also inherited, so must the flaw in the character, of which it is the outcome.