ary
sexual behaviour is most highly evolved,--correlative with the ardour
of the male is a certain amount of reluctance in the female. The pairing
act on her part only takes place after prolonged stimulation, for
affording which the behaviour of male courtship is the requisite
presentation. The most vigorous, defiant and mettlesome male is
preferred just because he alone affords a contributory stimulation
adequate to evoke the pairing impulse with its attendant emotional tone.

It is true that this places female preference or choice on a much lower
psychological plane than Darwin in some passages seems to contemplate
where, for example, he says that the female appreciates the display of
the male and places to her credit a taste for the beautiful. But Darwin
himself distinctly states ("Descent of Man" (2nd edition), Vol. II.
pages 136, 137; (Popular edition), pages 642, 643.) that "it is not
probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is most excited or
attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males." The
view here put forward, which has been developed by Prof. Groos ("The
Play of Animals", page 244, London, 1898.), therefore seems to have
Darwin's own sanction. The phenomena are not only biological; there are
psychological elements as well. One can hardly suppose that the female
is unconscious of the male's presence; the final yielding must surely be
accompanied by heightened emotional tone. Whether we call it choice or
not is merely a matter of definition of terms. The behaviour is in part
determined by supplementary psychological values. Prof. Groos regards
the coyness of females as "a most efficient means of preventing the
too early and too frequent yielding to the sexual impulse." (Ibid. page
283.) Be that as it may, it is, in any case, if we grant the facts, a
means through which male sexual behaviour with all its biological and
psychological implications, is raised to a level otherwise perhaps
unattainable by natural means, while in the female it affords
opportunities for the development in the individual and evolution in the
race of what we may follow Darwin in calling appreciation, if we empty
this word of the aesthetic implications which have gathered round it in
the mental life of man.

Regarded from this standpoint sexual selection, broadly considered, has
probably been of great importance. The psychological accompaniments
of the pairing situation have profoundly influenced the course