Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/374

346 chaperonings—of nature, seem always to be fearful lest their precocious young protégée should "go too far." "Supernatural" is an absurd word, if construed literally, as it seems to be by a great many people. With regard to such birds as domestic Pigeons and poultry, were anything very outré in their sexual relations to be observed, it would be natural to attribute it to high feeding or artificial conditions generally. But in how many wild species (living a wild life), and upon how many occasions have such matters—such intima arcana—been observed? Moreover, as I have already remarked, the thing goes deeper, and requires something of a more general and abiding nature to explain it. As to this, I am unable, myself, to add to what I have already suggested; but I would just en passant (in case it might have any significance) draw attention to the fact that in the Great Crested Grebe we have an example of a specially adorned species, the sexes of which are identical, except in size. This, I believe, is not a common thing amongst birds.

I believe, however, that facts such as I have here recounted may throw light upon much that is puzzling. It is a general view that in the human species the masculine and feminine nature differ considerably, if not essentially; but facts pointing in a contrary direction have sometimes been adduced, as, for instance, that many poets exhibit in portions of their writings qualities that seem feminine rather than masculine. This has been specially remarked of Shelley, but to me it appears much more obvious, and beyond mere matter of opinion in the case of great creators of character such as—to take the most familiar and salient example—Shakespeare. Is it not, really, a very remarkable thing that a man and not a woman should have created Cleopatra, Cordelia, Hermione, Perdita, Constance (those mother-scenes in King John), and so forth? Anyone, I suppose, who has ever read Shakespeare to purpose, must have received the impression that such perfect and consistent organisms, such actual living growths, such vitally informed entities, are beyond the powers of even the keenest observation—that they must have been felt rather than imagined even, and therefore must have belonged to the essential being of the mind from which they emanated. Yet to say that a man can truly and justly feel the feminine nature in its more essential manifestations is to