DUELSIN ANIMAL LIFE.

Northern Advocate, 21 January 1888, Page 3

DUELSIN ANIMAL LIFE.

The stickleback hag acquired his gorgeuus wedding garb, lUiujcordMice with a gfineraSflaw of auunal life, in or&or to please and a'.trj/jt. .to himself the attention of his {esthetic ijHßfa&t-i tidious mates. " Aittt; the breeding SKonia says Mr Darwin, " cdfours ajl" "change, tSI .throat and belly becomt of ..a "paler redL th£ aatatsßOWffliiVigi isad Ahfgloging tinfefubftiel Moreover, as usually happens u^th^SsSpjii highly* decorated animals, your<Cßticl&'6kacTr further resembles Solomon in being a «><&' undisguised polygamiat in the natural stativj and his brilliant hues have, no doubt, have dev<r»°ped to charm and draw to his side as many a? i possible of the female fish. Polygamous animals, in other words (says a writer in the " Cornhill Magizine ") are always handsome, because only the handsomest succeed in attracting to themselves a number of mates. and so handing on their peculiarities to future generations.

Furthermore, the strickleback are all great fighters ; and it may be broadly laid down once more as a general principle of animal life, and at the same time a contribution to the theory of sticklebacks, that all very handsome and decorated creatures are naturally pugnaciouß of disposition. Thus stags fight one another with their branching antlers for the possession of the does. Salmon constantly join battle aud tear one and another to pieces savagely on the recognised spawning beds. The polygamous ruff, distinguished from the sober-suited mate the reeve, by hia curious crest and by the great collar of plumes from which his name is taken, in as lull of the Homeric joy in battle as the gamecock, and quite as gamey. The wild Sumatran ancestor of our own barndoor fowl "does battle in the defence of his seraglio till one of the combatants drops down head." Blackcock and capercailzie assemble annually at regular tournaments to fight one another, and display their beauty before their expectant and undecided dames ; and on such occasions Kovalevsky has seen the snow of their arenas in Russir all red with blood, and covered with torn-out featheis of the chaupions.

Most of the handsomest birds and animals, indeed, are provided with Bpecial weapons for these fierce encounters, such as the spurs of game birds, the horns of antelopes, the antlers of stags, the tusks of the musk deer, and wing darts of the palamedia, and the fierce spiny fins of the most decorative fishes. Even the dainty little humming-birds themselves are prodigious fighters, and we have seen them engaging one another in their aerial battle with the utmost pluck, vigour, and endurance. Furthermore, beauty in animals is almost always accompanied, as Dr Ghinther has observed, by a very hasty aud irritable temper.