Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/44

 troops who are degraded most easily by habitual promiscuity. But this is not always the case; the character of the animal, his mode of life, and the degree of morality previously acquired, determine his manner of acting. It is probable also that certain animals, living in troops during the breeding season, have formerly been less sociable than at present, for they leave the troop and retire apart in couples as soon as they have paired. Social life is burdensome to them.

It is especially interesting to study the various modes of conjugal and familial association amongst birds. This may easily be inferred from the ardour, the variety, and the delicacy they bring to their amours; the moral level among them, to borrow a human expression, is very diverse, according to the species. There are some birds absolutely fickle and even debauched—as, for example, the little American starling (Icterus pecoris), which changes its female from day to day; that is to say, it is in the lowest stage of sexual union, a debauched promiscuity, which we only exceptionally find in some hardly civilised human societies. The starling, nevertheless, is not ferocious, like the asturides, to whom, according to Brehm, love seems unknown, and amongst whom the female devours her male, the father and the mother feast on their own young, and the latter, when full grown, willingly eat their parents. These ferocious habits denote a very feeble moral development. But if we may believe a French missionary, Mgr. Farand, bishop of the Mackenzie territory, similar customs still prevail among the Redskins of the extreme north. We shall not, therefore, be too much scandalised at the birds. These cases of moral grossness are, besides, rare enough with them.

Other species, while they have renounced promiscuity, are still determined polygamists. The gallinaceæ are particularly addicted to this form of conjugal union, which is so common, in fact, with mankind, even when highly civilised and boasting of their practice of monogamy. Our barn-door cock, vain and sensual, courageous and jealous, is a perfect type of the polygamous bird. But the polygamous