ves of fear should arise an instinctive feeling
that the sexual act must always be hidden, is a natural enough sequence.
And since it is not a long step between thinking of an act as needing
concealment and thinking of it as wrong, it is easily conceivable that
sexual intercourse comes to be regarded as a stolen and therefore, in some
degree, a sinful pleasure."[12]

Animals in a state of nature usually appear to seek seclusion for sexual
intercourse, although this instinct is lost under domestication. Even the
lowest savages, also, if uncorrupted by civilized influences, seek the
solitude of the forest or the protection of their huts for the same
purpose; the rare cases in which coitus is public seem usually to involve
a ceremonial or social observance, rather than mere personal
gratification. At Loango, for instance, it would be highly improper to
have intercourse in an exposed spot; it must only be performed inside the
hut, with closed doors, at night, when no one is present.[13]

It is on the sexual factor of modesty, existing in a well-marked
form even among animals, that coquetry is founded. I am glad to
find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who,
in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same
conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a
woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry
possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being
rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn
modesty. He refers to the roe, who runs away from the stag--but
in a circle. (Groos, _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 339;
also the same author's _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 288 _et
seq._) Another example of coquetry is furnished by the female
kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), which will spend all the morning in
teasing and flying away from the male, but is careful constantly
to look back, and never to let him out of her sight. (Many
examples are given by Buechner, in _Liebe und Liebesleben in der
Tierwelt_.) Robert Mueller (_Sexualbiologie_, p. 302) emphasizes
the importance of coquetry as a lure to the male.

"It is quite true," a lady writes to me in a private letter,
"that 'coquetry is a poor thing,' and that every milkmaid can
assume it, but a woman uses it principally in self-defence, while
she is finding out what the man himself is li