File:The study of animal life (1906) (14769231791).jpg

Identifier: studyofanimallif00thomuoft (find matches)
Title: The study of animal life
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur), 1861-1933
Subjects: Zoology
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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suc-cess in wooing to the strongest. In many cases the love-making is like a storm—violent but passing. The animalspair and separate—the females to motherhood, the males totheir ordinary life. A few, like some small antelopes, seemto remain as mates from year to year; many monkeys aresaid to be monogamous ; but this is not the way of themajority. Birds are more emotional than mammals, and their love-making is more refined. The males are almost alwaysmore decorative than their mates, and excel in the power ofsong. They may sing, it is true, from sheer gladness ofheart, from a genuine joy of life, and their lay rises like the sap in the bough; but the main motive oftheir music is certainly love. It may not always be musicto us, but it is sweet to the ears for which it is meant—towhich in many tones the song says ever Hither, my love IHere I am ! Here ! Nor do the male birds woo bysinging alone, but by love dances and by fluttering displays CHAP. VI TJie Domestic Life of Animals 97
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H 98 The Study of Animal Lije part i of their bright plumage ; with flowers, bright pods, andshining shells, the bower-birds decorate tents of love fortheir honeymoon. The mammals woo chiefly by force ; thebirds are often moved to love by beauty, and mates oftenlive in prolonged partnership with mutual delight and help-fulness. Sixty years before Darwin elaborated his theory ofsexual selection, according to which males have grown moreattractive because the most captivating suitors were mostsuccessful in love, the ornithologist Bechstein noted how thefemale canary or finch would choose the best singer amonga crowd of suitors ; and there seems some reason to believethat the females choice of the most musical or the mosthandsome has been a factor in progress. Wallace, on thecontrary, maintains that the females are plainly dressedbecause of the fate which has befallen the conspicuous duringincubation, and surely they must thus be handicapped. Toothers it seems more natural to admit that t

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