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276 I have drawn attention to, and endeavoured to account for.

To recapitulate. As the theory of sexual selection supposes that the one sex has been adorned and made beautiful in accordance with the taste and choice of the opposite one during the love season, we might expect that amongst those birds where the males are beautiful and the females plain, the more active part in courtship would be taken by the former; for this is the very road along which such beauty must have been gained. On the other hand, if the females had been equally ardent they would have arrived, by the same road, at the same, or a similar, goal. Therefore, in the above cases we ought to be prepared to find what we do find. But when the sexes, whether beautiful or not, resemble one another, there is not the same reason for supposing that the male alone actively courts, and since, in such cases, it is very difficult to tell by actual observation whether this is so, or not, we really know very little about the matter. Instead of knowing, we assume, and of two birds, either of which may be, as far as outward appearance goes, either the male or the female, that one which we see pursuing or paying court to the other is always the male in our eyes. Yet even amongst those species where the male alone is adorned, courting on the part of the female is by no means unknown, and rival hens sometimes fight for the cock. How much more, therefore, is this likely to be the case where the sexes are alike, and where, consequently,