The Courtship of Animals

by W. P. Pycraft

The armoury necessary for successful love-making contains yet other weapons, evolved to supplement physical force, and more subtle in their effect. Such are certain skin glands which, at the rutting season, secrete a copious flow of a creamy, or semi-fluid matter, and pungent odour. In the deer the more important of these are found in the deep pit, or “larmier,” which opens in front of the eye. In the Musk-deer, however, this secretion has a most powerful odour of musk, and is formed in a pouch, or “pod,” of about the size of a small orange, under the skin of the abdomen. The secretion, which is formed by the male only, is of a chocolate colour, and of about the consistence of moist gingerbread. It has a most pungent scent, and when diluted forms the basis of many of our most powerful and most highly-prized perfumes, on which account, it may be mentioned, this animal has for generations been submitted to a most unrelenting persecution. But that is another story.

In most of the antelopes the principal scent gland is seated in a pit in front of the eye, as in the deer. In some, as in the Gnu, it forms instead a swollen, tumid area, oblong in shape, instead of lying in a pit. In the Reedbuck it is placed around the bases of the horns; and in the Rocky-Mountain Goat it forms a great bare cushion behind the horns. All have more or less well-developed glands seated in the skin between the toes. But, wherever placed, the secretions thereof are more or less completely suspended save during the breeding season, when they are poured forth abundantly. The precise rôle they play is by no means certainly known. It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the first place, the odour they disperse enables the males to announce their whereabouts to the females seeking mates, should they fail to hear their bellowing. But the antelopes, for the most part, unlike deer, do not, the year round, lose touch with one another; so that it must be concluded that these odours serve as excitants to the act of pairing, and we know that the sense of smell plays a very important part at this time, which, so far as these animals are concerned, is the only period which comes more or less exactly within the meaning of the term “courtship.”

That scent among the antelopes holds a really important place is shown by the fact that the bull of the common Eland intensifies his natural odours by micturating upon the mass of long hair which grows upon the forehead. To do this the head is bent down and turned tailwards, in order that the tuft should receive its due urinary spray! And goats in captivity exhibit the same curious habit. In them, indeed, it is often pushed to such an excess that blindness results, so that the animal has to be slaughtered.

While in many cases these odours are imperceptible to human nostrils, in others this is far from being the case. Among the ruminants the goat is particularly odorous. So also are the giraffe and the water-buck, both of which may be detected by their smell at considerable distances. And these emanations are most noticeable in the males and at the breeding season. The bull elephant, both in the Indian and African species, during the breeding season produces a copious flow of aromatic matter from a gland which opens above the eye in the form of a tubular aperture large enough to admit a pencil. This aperture in the African elephant is remarkable for the fact that it is invariably found to be “plugged” with numerous spines of the acacia, which have from time to time found their way in as the animal was forcing its way through the dense undergrowth. This extraordinary fact was first noticed by Mr. F. C. Selous, and has since been confirmed by Dr. Einar Lonnberg.

It is probable that the “bloody sweat,” which at times covers the hide of the Hippopotamus just after leaving the water, is associated with the period of rut. This mysterious exudation is accompanied by small crystals; but though red in colour, it contains no blood. So far no reasonable explanation for this remarkable phenomenon has ever been given, but probably it will be found to be associated with the sexual activities and is possibly odoriferous. A precisely similar exudation occurs in the neck of the male of the Red Kangaroo.

That these secretions play an important and perhaps variable part in the selection of mates seems demonstrated in the case of an incident related to me by my friend Mr. John Cooke, who some time ago was watching a flock of some three hundred sheep while it was being driven by the shepherd and his dogs into a field. As soon as they were securely shut in, and the shepherd had gone, three rams who were included in the flock at once began a three-cornered fight. One, presumably the youngest, was soon vanquished. The other two soon settled their differences, and the clashing of horns was at once followed by a very different performance. The master ram began to run in and out among the ewes, sniffing at each, and driving out those whose odour most pleased him. Having at last satisfied himself with a harem of about one hundred, the second ram was allowed to make a like choice, and behaved in a like manner, leaving the remainder to the ram which was first vanquished. May we take it that the strongest and oldest rams selected the youngest ewes, and the oldest were left to the youngest, and first conquered ram? By some such rough and ready method of selection Nature may contrive that the immature male shall do as little harm to the race as possible by mating with the oldest, and in many cases barren females.

Our survey of the “hoofed” animals has so far been confined to the ruminants. Space must now be found for a brief review of what obtains under like circumstances in the case of the great pachyderms—the Elephant, Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus; the Pig and the Camel.

Plate 9.

Photo by Lord Delamere, from “The Living Animals of the World”