Meanwhile, the
dull-plumaged female is not seen and not heard: for not even a skulking
crake lives in closer seclusion under the herbage--so widely have the
sexes diverged in this species. Is the female, then, without an instinct
so common r--has she no sudden fits of irrepressible gladness?
Doubtless she has them, and manifests them down in her place of
concealment in lively chirpings and quick motions--the simple, primitive
form in which gladness is expressed in the class of birds. In the
various species of the genus Cnipolegus, already mentioned, the
difference in the sexes is just as great as in the case of the troupial:
the solitary, intensely black, statuesque male has, we have seen, a set
and highly fantastic performance; but on more than one occasion I have
seen four or five females of one species meet together and have a little
simple performance all to themselves--in form a kind of lively mock
fight.
It might be objected that when a bird takes its stand and repeats a set
finished song at intervals for an hour at a stretch, remaining quietly
perched, such a performance appears to be different in character from
the irregular and simple displays which are unmistakably caused by a
sudden glad impulse. But we are familiar with the truth that in organic
nature great things result from small beginnings--a common flower, and
our own bony skulls, to say nothing of the matter contained within them,
are proofs of it.
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