The Descent of Man

CHAPTER XIV.
BIRDS—continued.
Choice exerted by the female—Length of
courtship—Unpaired birds—Mental qualities
and taste for the beautiful—Preference or antipathy
shewn by the female for particular males—Variability
of birds—Variations sometimes
abrupt—Laws of variation—Formation of ocelli—Gradations
of character— Case of Peacock,
Argus pheasant, and Urosticte.
When the sexes differ in beauty or in the power
of singing, or in producing what I have called
instrumental music, it is almost invariably the
male who surpasses the female. These qualities,
as we have just seen, are evidently of high importance
to the male. When they are gained for
only a part of the year it is always before the
breeding-season. It is the male alone who elaborately
displays his varied attractions, and
often performs strange antics on the ground or