“The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!” wrote Charles Darwin in 1860. Darwin, along with other naturalists of his times, had theorized that the broad diversification in bird coloration evolved as a function of sexual selection. But the peacock took it to such extreme that it became a fallacy in their proposition. Evidently his disdain of this problem was detailed in full:
“This latter bird, however, evidently wishes for a spectator of some kind, and will shew off his finery, as I have often seen, before poultry or even pigs. … Mr. Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, expressed himself to me in the strongest terms to the same effect. It must be a grand sight in the forests of India ‘to come suddenly on twenty or thirty pea-fowl, the males displaying their gorgeous trains, and strutting about in all the pomp of pride before the gratified females.’ The wild turkey-cock erects his glittering plumage, expands his finely-zoned tail and barred wing-feathers, and altogether, with his gorged crimson and blue wattles, makes a superb, though, to our eyes, grotesque appearance.”
At the heart of the problem is the danger posed to the bird’s survival because of his dashing display of the tail. Not only would it make easy prey, but its long train would have been inconvenient and dangerous to the peahen during chick rearing. All combined the risk of survival should exceed that of sexual selection. Darwin went on:
“Does the male parade his charms with so much pomp and rivalry for no purpose? Are we not justified in believing that the female exerts a choice, and that she receives the addresses of the male who pleases her most? It is not probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is most excited or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males. Nor need it be supposed that the female studies each stripe or spot of colour; that the peahen, for instance, admires each detail in the gorgeous train of the peacock – she is probably struck only by the general effect.”
By the 20th century, various propositions considered alternative reasons driving bird coloration. Richard Hingston in 1933 proposed that bright colors in male birds evolved as an intimidatory mechanism against rivals during disputes, rather than solely through female choice. Hugh Cott’s work in 1964 argued for bird coloration to be heavily driven by the need to be less profitable prey to predators. Other studies suggested it as a mechanism for camouflaging. For example, birds thriving in climates with higher precipitation and vegetation are darker in color overall, while desert birds tend to be lighter. Desert birds have more grey on their backs, while those in the forest have evolved to be a dark green.
We also know today that birds see a wider range of colors than we do, and many are able to see colors in the UV spectrum as well. Thus the differences in color patterns between birds may appear more pronounced to them than they appear to our eyes. While red and yellow hues come from the bird’s diet, blues are a product of intricate protein structures reflecting light in just the right way, and iridescence is a refined structural coloration in which proteins line up, like grooves in a compact disc, and all reflect light back in the same direction. Not only with peacocks, but various bird species make use of their colors to display their charms with the utmost skill. The bird of paradise, with elongated and golden-orange plumes which spring from beneath the wings when vertically erected and made to vibrate, is described as forming a sort of halo, in the centre of which the head “looks like a little emerald sun with its rays formed by the two plumes.” The bell-bird of South America, on the other hand, is pure white. Rising three inches from the base of its beak is a jet-black spiral tube, dotted over with minute downy feathers. However, even after 150 years, the reason for the evolution of the peacock’s long train remains a mystery. We still don’t know what the peahen sees and chooses in it, whether it be the extreme length and spread at erection, the dazzling color spectrum, or the wondrous details in each feather.
From these studies of the birds and bees Darwin developed his reasoning for the superiority of man over woman. The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes was shown through man’s ability to attain a higher eminence, whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands, as he be more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and had a more inventive genius. He wrote, “when two men are put into competition, or a man with a woman, who possess every mental quality in the same perfection, with the exception that the one has higher energy, perseverance, and courage, this one will generally become more eminent, whatever the object may be, and will gain the victory. He may be said to possess genius – for genius has been declared by a great authority to be patience; and patience, in this sense, means unflinching, undaunted perseverance.” As for evidence, he cited the lack of mastery in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, history, science, and philosophy among women as compared to men.
Today the vast majority of the population no longer supports this theory of man’s superiority over woman. However, even after 150 years, we still don’t know the reason for such a lack of mastery in artworks among women as compared to men. Just as we still don’t know the reason for such overwhelming evidence of patriarchal societies, and of a lack of matriarchal societies in the history of civilization. It remains a mystery.
Bibliography
Darwin, The Descent of Man.
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