Tropical Nature, and Other Essays

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: colours and habits of male and female birds (Deseent of Man, Chapters xiii. nnd xiv.), proves that in most, if not in all cases, the male birds fully display their ornamental plumage before the females or in rivalry with each other; but on the essential point of whether the female's choiee is determined by minute differenees in these ornaments or in their colours, there appears to be an entire absenee of evidenee. In the section on Preferenee for -purlicular Males by the Females, the facts qxioted show indifferenee to colour, exeept that some colour similar to their own seems to be preferred. But in the case of the hen canary, who chose a greenfinch in preferenee to either chaffinch or goldfinch, gay colours had evidently no preponderating attraction. There is some evidenee addueed that female birds may, and probably do, choose their mates; but none whatever that the choiee is determined by differenee of colour; and no less than three eminent breeders informed Mr. Darwin that they did not believe that the females prefer eertain males on aeeount of the beauty of their plumage. Again, Mr. Darwin himself says: As a general rule colour appears to have little influenee on the pairing of pigeons. The oft-quoted case of Sir R. Heron's pea-hens which preferred an old pied cock to those normally coloured, 13 a very unfortunate one; because pied birds are just those that are not favoured in a state of nature, or the breeds of wild animals would become as varied and mottled as our domestic varieties. If such irregular faneies were not rare exeeptions, the production of definite colours and patterns by the choiee of the female birds, or in any other way, would be impossible. There remains, however, to be aeeounted for, the remarkable faet of the display by the male of eaeh sp...