splay seems endless, beautiful plumes, elongated feathery
tresses, neck-ruffs, breast-shields, brightly-coloured cowls and
wattles occur with marvellous richness of variety.

Now, can we accept the Darwinian theory, and believe that all these
appendages of beauty, as well as the sexual weapons, powers of song
and movement, have been developed through the preference of the
females? the stronger and more ornamental males becoming in this way
the parents of each successive generation. Wallace, as is well known,
opposed Darwin's view, preferring to regard sexual selection as a
manifestation of natural selection. He has been followed by other
naturalists, who have denied this creative power of love, being unable
to credit conscious choice by the females of the most gifted males.
The controversy on the question has been long and at times violent.
Yet, it would seem, as so often happens in all disagreements, that the
difference in opinion is more apparent than founded on the facts.
There is really no difficulty if once we understand the true
significance of courtship. What this is I have tried to make clear.
During the excitement of pairing the male birds are in a condition of
the most perfect development, and possess an enormous store of
superabundant vitality; this, as may readily be understood, may well
express itself in brilliant colours and superfluities of ornamental
plumage, as also in song, in dancing, in love tournaments and in
battles. The fact that we have to remember is that the female is most
easily won by the male, who, being himself most charged with sex
desire--and through this means reaching the finest development--is
able to create a corresponding intoxication in her, and thus, by
producing in both the most perfect condition, favours the chances of
reproduction. There is no need whatever to suppose any conscious
choice or special aesthetic perception on the part of the females.
Great effects are everywhere produced in Nature by simple causes. The
female responds to the stimulus of the right male at the right
moment--that is really the whole matter.[82]

In these instances (brought forward in the previous section of this
chapter) of the universal hunger of sex, which are fairly typical and
are as complete as my space will allow, certain facts have become
clear. In the first place we have seen something of the strong driving
of the procreative function, which is the guarantee of the
continuation and developme