Indubitable evidences of Coyness are found as low down as among insects; as, for example, in the species called Smynthurnus luteus, “wingless, dull-coloured, minute insects, with ugly, almost misshapen heads and bodies,” concerning which Sir John Lubbock remarks: “It is very amusing to see these little creatures coquetting together. The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful lambs. Then the female pretends to run away, and the male runs after her with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again; then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker and more active, scuttles round too, and seems to whip her with his antennæ; then for a bit they stand face to face, play with their antennæ, and seem to be all in all to one another.”
The Coyness of birds is illustrated by the following cases cited by Büchner from Brehm and A. and K. Müller: “A genuine coquette is the female cuckoo, who answers the call of the male with a peculiar resonant, tittering or laughing love-call. ‘The call is seducing, promising in advance, and its effect on the male simply enchanting.’ But how long the lovers pursuing the siren have to wait before she accepts one of them! A wild flight begins, among bushes and tree-tops, while the female encourages the pursuers with repeated calls, and finally gets them into a state of erotic excitement bordering on madness. At the same time the female is no less excited than her frantic suitors. Her favourite, no doubt, is the most eager of the lovers, and her apparent resistance simply the desire to excite him still more! … The female of the icebird (Alcedo ispida) often teases her lover half a day at a time, by repeatedly approaching him, screaming at him, and flying away again. At the same time she never loses sight of him, but in her flight casts glances at him backwards and sidewise, moderates the rapidity of her flight, and returns in a wide curve if the male suddenly ceases from his pursuit.”
Could anything be more naïvely, more humanly, more exquisitely feminine? If a lover, says a French philosopher, fails in his suit, let him desist for a moment, and she will presently call him back.
No inquiry has ever been made by naturalists, so far as I am aware, as to the origin of Coyness among animals. Two probable sources of this feeling may therefore be here suggested. The first is a vague instinctive presentiment (based on inherited cerebral impressions) that with mating the labours of life will begin: the painful laying of eggs; the loss of liberty during incubation—an incalculable loss to these most active of all animals; and the care of the young, which, again, is not a trifling matter, inasmuch as a family of starlings, for example, needs for its daily food more than eight hundred snails, caterpillars, etc.; and birds sometimes perish from exhaustion in the attempt to feed their offspring.
The second source of Coyness is probably another instinctive feeling (based on inherited experience) which induces the female to defer her choice until the combats and manœuvres of the males have shown which one is the most energetic, courageous, and persistent: for he will obviously be best able to support her brood, and protect it as well as herself against enemies. Hence, during the combats of rival males, the female is commonly a passive spectator, and at the end quietly marches or flies off with the victor. All of which, by the way, shows that among animals already masculine love is deeper than feminine. Indirectly, it is true, feminine Coyness is the cause of Love—but only of masculine Love; for if the female animal always accepted the first male who asked her—
“My pretty maiden, may I venture
To offer you my arm and escort?”
there would be no opportunity for the growth of pre-matrimonial passion.
(c) Individual Preference.—Owing to our scant information concerning the courtship of animals in a state of nature, Darwin did not succeed in discovering any cases among mammals of decided preference shown by a male for any particular female; and regarding domesticated quadrupeds, “The general impression amongst breeders seems to be that the male accepts any female; and this, owing to his eagerness, is, in most cases, probably the truth.” A few cases of special preference or antipathy in dogs, horses, bulls, and boars, were, however, communicated to him. Concerning birds Darwin remarks that “In all ordinary cases the male is so eager that he will accept any female, and does not, as far as we can judge, prefer one to the other, but … exceptions to this rule apparently occur in some few groups. With domesticated birds, I have heard of only one case of males showing any preference for certain females, namely, that of the domestic cock, who, according to the high authority of Mr. Hewitt, prefers the younger to the older hens.”
This, however, is at best only a polygamous sort of Preference, which, after all, lacks the essential traits of Individualisation and Exclusiveness. With the long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), M. Ekström says, “It has been remarked that certain females are much more courted than the rest. Frequently, indeed, one sees an individual surrounded by six or eight amorous males.” Whether this statement is credible Darwin does not know; but the Swedish sportsmen, he adds, shoot these females and stuff them as decoys.
In female animals, on the other hand, the “overtone” of Individual Preference appears to be more frequently present. Darwin even asserts that “the exertion of some choice on the part of the female seems a law almost as general as the eagerness of the male;” but this is not borne out by the numerous illustrations given by himself, showing that when two or more males are engaged in jealous combat, “the female looks on as a passive spectator,” and finally goes off with the victor, whichever of the rivals he may prove to be, without showing the slightest concern for the vanquished. An Australian forest-maiden might behave similarly under these circumstances, but a civilised maiden would cling to the one who had made the deepest impression on her previous to the combat; and if wounded, would adore him all the more; for in her Love pity is a stronger ingredient than even the love of prowess.
That female birds, however, sometimes exert a choice is admitted even by Mr. A. R. Wallace (Tropical Nature, p. 199); and a few of the cases referred to by Darwin may here be cited: “Audubon—and we must remember that he spent a long life in prowling about the forests of the United States and observing the birds—does not doubt that the female deliberately chooses her mate; thus, speaking of a woodpecker, he says the hen is followed by half a dozen gay suitors, who continue performing strange antics ‘until a marked preference is shown for one.’ The female of the red-winged starling (Agelæus phœniceus) is likewise pursued by several males, ‘until, becoming fatigued, she alights, receives their addresses, and soon makes a choice.’ He describes also how several male nightjars repeatedly plunge through the air with astonishing rapidity, suddenly turning, and thus making a singular noise; ‘but no sooner has the female made her choice than the other males are driven away.’ ”
Concerning domesticated birds we have seen that that gallinaceous sultan, the domestic cock, shows a decided preference for the younger hens in his harem. But the female is not a bit less frivolous and capricious; for, according to Mr. Hewitt, she almost invariably prefers the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male; hence it is almost useless, he adds, “to attempt true breeding if a game-cock in good health and condition runs the locality, for almost every hen on leaving the roosting-place will resort to the game-cock, even though that bird may not actually drive away the male of her own variety.”
(d) Personal Beauty and Sexual Selection.—Mr. Wallace, who discovered the law of Natural Selection independently of Darwin, admits, as just stated, that “in birds the females do sometimes exert a choice”; but he adds that “amid the copious mass of facts and opinions collected by Mr. Darwin as to the display of colour and ornaments by the male birds, there is a total absence of any evidence that the females admire or even notice this display. The hen, the turkey, and the pea-fowl go on feeding while the male is displaying his finery; and there is reason to believe that it is his persistency and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day.”
Briefly