Unlike the struggle
for existence in the ordinary sense of the phrase, the courtship of
the sexes presents a situation in which an appeal is made for the
favor of another personality, and the success of this appeal has a
survival value--not for the individual, but for the species through
the individual. We have, in fact, a situation in which the good
opinion of another is vitally important. On this account the means
of attracting and interesting others are definitely and bountifully
developed among all the higher species of animals. Voice, plumage,
color, odor, and movement are powerful excitants in wooing and aids
both to the conquest of the female and the attraction of the male. In
this connection we must also recognize the fact that reproductive life
must be connected with violent stimulation, or it would be neglected
and the species would become extinct; and, on the other hand, if the
conquest of the female were too easy, sexual life would be in danger
of becoming a play interest and a dissipation, destructive of energy
and fatal to the species. Working, we may assume, by a process of
selection and survival, nature has both secured and safeguarded
reproduction.
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