It is, no doubt, true that all collections of facts relating to animal life present nature to us somewhat as a "fantastic realm"--unavoidably so, in a measure, since the writing would be too bulky, or too dry, or too something inconvenient, if we did not take only the most prominent facts that come before us, remove them from their places, where alone they can be seen in their proper relations to numerous other less prominent facts, and rearrange them patch work-wise to make up our literature. But I am convinced that any student of the subject who will cast aside his books--supposing that they have not already bred a habit in his mind of seeing only "in accordance with verbal statement"--and go directly to nature to note the actions of animals for himself--actions which, in many cases, appear to lose all significance when set down in writing--the result of such independent investigation will be a conviction that conscious sexual selection on the part of the female is not the cause of music and dancing performances in birds, nor of the brighter colours and ornaments that distinguish the male. It is true that the females of some species, both in the vertebrate and insect kingdoms, do exercise a preference; but in a vast majority of species the male takes the female he finds, or that he is able to win from other competitors; and if we go to the reptile class we find that in the ophidian order, which excels in variety and richness of colour, there is no such thing as preferential mating; and if we go to the insect class, we find that in butterflies, which surpass all creatures in their glorious beauty, the female gives herself up to the embrace of the first male that appears, or else is captured by the strongest male, just as she might be by a mantis or some other rapacious insect. CHAPTER XX. BIOGRAPHY OF THE VIZCACHA. _(Lagostomus Trichodactylus.)_