Diversions of a Naturalist

by Sir E. Ray Lankester

CHAPTER XXI
COURTSHIP IN ANIMALS AND MAN

THE German poet Schiller arrived long ago at the conclusion that the machinery of the world is driven by hunger and by love. If we join with hunger, which is the craving of the individual for nourishment, the activities which aim at self-defence,—whether against competitors for food, against would-be devourers, or against dangers to life and limb, from storm, flood, and temperature,—we may accept Schiller's statement as equivalent to this, namely, that the activities and the mechanisms of living things are related to two great ends—the preservation of the individual and the preservation of the race. "Love," or what we should call in more discriminating language "amorousness," or the "mating hunger," is the absolute and inherent attribute of living things upon which the preservation of the race depends. The preservation of the individual is of less importance in the scheme of Nature than the preservation of the race, and we find that food-hunger and the risk of dangers of all kinds to the continuance of an individual life are made of no account when satisfaction of mate-hunger and the preservation and perpetuation of the race requires the sacrifice or the shortening of the life, or the permanent distortion or self-immolation of the individual. Eccentric behaviour and strange exaggeration of form and colour, as judged by the standard of preservation of the individual, are found to be explained as due to structures (nervous or other) implanted in the race by natural selection, because, and in consequence of, the fact that they tend to the satisfaction of mate-hunger, and consequently to the preservation of the race.

The fact that the male animal seeks out the female in order to mate with her leads to a competition amongst males in "courtship," both in man and in the higher and lower grades of the animal series. "Courtship" comprises many procedures. Among them are the seizing and sometimes carrying off of the female by the mate-seeking male; or else the attraction of the attention of the female by the male, and her subsequent fascination by him, followed by her responsive excitement and assent to union. Fighting, often to the death, between rival suitors not unfrequently occurs.

Any animal practising the first of these arts of courtship must have developed greater strength and size than the female, and special claws or jaws or prehensile limbs which will become emphasized and increased in size by the success of the better-endowed males, and their consequent "natural selection" as parents. This elementary and violent form of courtship is found in primitive man, and is inferred to exist amongst the higher apes. It is also seen in many mammals, and in frogs and toads, and in some of the Crustacea and insects which are provided with powerful claws, jaws, or limbs.

The second set of "courtship" activities mentioned above, which are of a persuasive (often hypnotic) and non-violent nature, are more widely distributed and varied. They include a number which come under the general head of "display," whether the appeal be by sound (the voice), by odour, or by strange antics and gorgeous colour. They involve the production of the most remarkable special structures; and by their appeal to the human sense of hearing, smell, and sight are in many cases well known and familiar to us. Following upon "display" are what may be classed as "caresses"—attempts to soothe and to subjugate the female by the sense of touch.

The third kind of activity developed in "courtship" is that of fighting—fighting to the death with other suitors. It involves the production of all those natural weapons, horns, tusks, and special claws or spurs with which male animals fight one another at the breeding season. It also involves that perfection of muscular strength, rapidity, and skill in action which have enabled one male to triumph over others, and whilst destroying or banishing his less perfect opponent to transmit his own superior qualities to his offspring. It seems that to this incessantly recurring and relentless struggle between males, in courtship for the favour of the female, more rapid and important changes and developments of animal structure and endowments are due than to the more obvious competition for food, safety from enemies, and shelter. Thus muscular power, grasping and aggressive weapons, wonderful colours, forms and patterns which catch the eye, perfumes and powers of song and arresting cries, instinctive antics and caresses, have been developed in the males and transmitted to some extent to both sexes, but predominantly to the males.

Mr. Pycraft, in his book on this subject,[5] remarks that the tremendous power of "mate-hunger" has been overlooked by a strange confusion of cause and effect. Almost universally its sequel, the production of offspring, has been regarded as the dominant instinct in the higher animals, but this view has no foundation in fact. Desire, for the sake of the pleasure which its gratification affords, and not its consequences, is the only hold on life which any race possesses. And this is true both in the case of man himself and of the beasts that perish. Those whose business it is, for one reason or another, to study these emotions, know well that "mate-hunger" may be as ravenous as food-hunger, and that, with some exceptions, it is immensely more insistent in the males than in the females. But for this appetite, reproduction in many species could not take place, for the sexes often live far apart, and mates are only to be won after desperate conflict with powerful rivals no less inflamed. It is idle to speak of an equality between the sexes in this matter, either in regard to animals or in the human race. The male is dominated by the desire to gratify the sexual appetite; in the female this is modified by the stimulation of other instincts concerned with the care of offspring. Amorousness is the underlying factor which has shaped and is sustaining human society, and is no less powerful among the lower animals. Much that is considered contrary to human nature, and either outrageous or ridiculous, would be understood and wisely dealt with if knowledge of nature, including man's nature, were cultivated, and took the place of vain assertions as to "what should be," accompanied by ignorance of "what is."

[5] "The Courtship of Animals," Hutchinson, 1913.

An excellent sample of the more violent method of "courtship by seizure" is found in the proceedings of the northern fur-seal as described by Mr. Pycraft. The old bulls, after spending the greater part of the year in the open sea, arrive at the rocks which serve as the breeding grounds a full month before the cows arrive. The younger bulls attempt, but fail, to get a place on the rocks. The bull holding the most advantageous place—the nearest to the landing-place—starts the collecting of cows. Having seized the first arrival, he places her by his side. As the later females arrive he proceeds in the same way. He soon has "herded" more cows than he can control. He cannot be in two places at once, and in scuttling off to chastise some covetous neighbour who is eloping with one of his wives, one or more bulls on the opposite side of his harem proceed to make captures from his horde. This sort of thing goes on till all the cows have been appropriated, according to the herding and holding capacities of the bulls, leaving a crowd of envious bachelors in the background not strong enough or courageous enough to fight. Each bull is master of the situation, whether his harem consists of five cows or fifty. If a cow is restless he growls at her. If she tries to escape he fiercely bites her, and if she tries to outrun him he seizes her by the skin of the neck and tosses her back, often torn and bleeding, into the family circle. Sometimes a cow is killed by the struggle of two bulls to pull her in opposite directions, and in this way the more querulous and discontented cows are eliminated in each generation, and the peculiarly gentle and passive nature characteristic of the cow seals has been developed. For three long months the bull seal has to keep watch and ward fasting. This is a most exceptional strain and effort, for in other animals fasting is associated with absolute rest and sleep. The bull fur-seal arrives at the breeding ground fat and in fine condition; he leaves it, though triumphant, a starved and battered wreck.

The more agreeable arts of courtship are exhibited by birds in greatest variety and in more familiar examples than in any other animals. The use of odours secreted by special glands as attractions to the females is frequent in the mammals—such as the musk-deer, the musk-rat, the civet, and many common hoofed animals, such as deer, antelopes, goats, and sheep—but has not been noticed in birds, though known in butterflies and moths. It is in the use of the voice in singing and in the special display of gorgeous plumage, grown, so to speak, for the purpose at the breeding season, and in strutting, fantastic posturing, and in dancing that the male bird excels. Not all birds do all these things, and female birds do none of them as a rule.