The Descent of Man

Mr. Swaysland of Brighton has been in the
habit, during the last forty years, of catching
our migratory birds on their first arrival, and he
has never known the females of any species to
arrive before their males. During one spring he
shot thirty-nine males of Ray's wagtail (Budytes
Raii) before he saw a single female. Mr. Gould
has ascertained by the dissection of those snipes
which arrive the first in this country, that
the males come before the females. And the like
holds good with most of the migratory birds of
the United States. (5. J.A. Allen, on the 'Mammals
and Winter Birds of Florida,' Bulletin of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard College, p.
268.) The majority of the male salmon in our
rivers, on coming up from the sea, are ready to
breed before the females. So it appears to be
with frogs and toads. Throughout the great
class of insects the males almost always are the
first to emerge from the pupal state, so that
they generally abound for a time before any
females can be seen. (6. Even with those plants