Topknots, gaudy feathers, elongated plumes among birds, huge tusks, horns, etc., among mammals, the mane of the lion, and the beard of man, may be noticed among the many characters which have been acquired through Sexual Selection.
Although the immense teeth, tusks, horns, and various other weapons or appendages which ornament the males of many species of mammals, have all been developed through Sexual Selection for contending with their rivals for the favours of the females, it is observed that the “most pugnacious and best armed males seldom depend for success on their ability to drive away or kill their rivals,” but that their special aim is to “charm the female.” Mr. Darwin quotes from a “good observer,” who believes that the battles of male birds “are all a sham, performed to show themselves to the greatest advantage before the admiring females who assemble around.”[9]
In The Descent of Man is quoted the following from Mr. Belt, who, after describing the beauty of the Florisuga mellivora, says:
I have seen the female sitting on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, then suddenly expanding the snow-white tail, like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off back and front.... The expanded white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, and was evidently the grand feature in the performance. Whilst one male was descending, the other would shoot up and come slowly down expanded. The entertainment would end in a fight between the two performers; but whether the most beautiful or the most pugnacious was the accepted suitor, I know not.[10]
Audubon, who spent a long life in observing birds, has no doubt that the female deliberately chooses her mate. Of the woodpecker he says the hen is followed by half a dozen suitors, who continue performing strange antics “until a marked preference is shown for one.” Of the red-winged starling it is said that she is pursued by several males “until, becoming fatigued, she alights, receives their addresses, and soon makes a choice.”[11] Mr. Darwin quotes further from Audubon, who says that among the Virginia goat-suckers, no sooner has the female “made her choice than her approved gives chase to all intruders, and drives them beyond his dominions.”
It is said that among mammals the male depends almost entirely upon his strength and courage to “charm the female.” With reference to the struggles between animals for the possession of the females, Mr. Darwin says:
This fact is so notorious that it would be superfluous to give instances. Hence the females have the opportunity of selecting one out of several males, on the supposition that their mental capacity suffices for the exertion of a choice.[12]
We are assured that among nearly all the lower orders of life the female exhibits a marked preference for certain individuals, and that an equal degree of repugnance is manifested towards others, but that the male, whose predominant character is desire, “is ready to pair with any female.” On this subject Mr. Darwin remarks: “The general impression seems to be that the male accepts any female.” He says it frequently occurs that while two males are fighting together to win the favours of a female, she goes away with a third for whom she has a preference. Mr. Darwin quotes from Captain Bryant, who says of a certain species of seals:
Many of the females on their arrival at the island where they breed, appear desirous of returning to some particular male, and frequently climb the outlying rock to overlook the rookeries, calling out and listening as if for a familiar voice. Then changing to another place they do the same again.[13]
Little seems to be known of the courtship of animals in a state of nature. Among domesticated species, however, many observations have been made by breeders going to prove that the female exerts a choice in pairing. Concerning dogs, Mr. Darwin quotes from Mr. Mayhew, who says: “The females are able to bestow their affections; and tender recollections are as potent over them as they are known to be in other cases where higher animals are concerned.” Of the affection of female dogs for certain males the same writer says it “becomes of more than romantic endurance,” that they manifest a “devotion which no time can afterwards subdue.”