would have a poor chance of leaving offspring. Sexual selection by
always allowing the victor to breed might surely give indomitable
courage, length to the spur, and strength to the wing to strike in the
spurred leg, as well as the brutal cock-fighter, who knows well that he
can improve his breed by careful selection of the best cocks. How low
in the scale of nature this law of battle descends, I know not; male
alligators have been described as fighting, bellowing, and whirling
round, like Indians in a war-dance, for the possession of the females;
male salmons have been seen fighting all day long; male stag-beetles
often bear wounds from the huge mandibles of other males. The war is,
perhaps, severest between the males of polygamous animals, and these
seem oftenest provided with special weapons. The males of carnivorous
animals are already well armed; though to them and to others, special
means of defence may be given through means of sexual selection, as the
mane to the lion, the shoulder-pad to the boar, and the hooked jaw to
the male salmon; for the shield may be as important for victory, as the
sword or spear.

Amongst birds, the contest is often of a more peaceful character.
All those who have attended to the subject, believe that there is the
severest rivalry between the males of many species to attract by singing
the females. The rock-thrush of Guiana, birds of Paradise, and some
others, congregate; and successive males display their gorgeous plumage
and perform strange antics before the females, which standing by as
spectators, at last choose the most attractive partner. Those who have
closely attended to birds in confinement well know that they often take
individual preferences and dislikes: thus Sir R. Heron has described how
one pied peacock was eminently attractive to all his hen birds. It may
appear childish to attribute any effect to such apparently weak means: I
cannot here enter on the details necessary to support this view; but if
man can in a short time give elegant carriage and beauty to his bantams,
according to his standard of beauty, I can see no good reason to doubt
that female birds, by selecting, during thousands of generations,
the most melodious or beautiful males, according to their standard of
beauty, might produce a marked effect. I strongly suspect that some
well-known laws with respect to the plumage of male and female birds, in
comparison with the plumage of the young, can be explained o