here is no necessity that the
male should have any knowledge of the end to which his strenuous
activity leads up. In presence of the female there is an elaborate
application of all the energies of behaviour, just because ages of
racial preparation have made him biologically and emotionally what he
is--a functionally sexual male that must dance or sing or go through
hereditary movements of display, when the appropriate stimulation
comes. Of course after the first successful courtship his future
behaviour will be in some degree modified by his previous experience.
No doubt during his first courtship he is gaining the primary data of
a peculiarly rich experience, instinctive and emotional. But the
biological foundations of the behaviour of courtship are laid in the
hereditary coordinations. It would seem that in some cases, not indeed
in all, perhaps especially in those cases in which secondary 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 vigourous, 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[177] 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,[178]
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 t