As comparative psychology is the youngest branch of philosophy, there
are still among us thousands of excellent but ignorant folks who cling
to the old mythologic notion that animals are animated machines or
things “which” are devoid of intellect and feeling, and guided by a
metaphysical fetish called “instinct.” To such the undertaking of a
search for Love—real Romantic Love—among animals, will seem not only
absurd, but a sort of high treason against human conceit. To mitigate
any possible indignation on the reader’s part, it may be advisable,
therefore, to begin by giving a few illustrations demonstrating the
existence of various family affections and friendship in the animal
world; after which, the possibility of finding traces of Love proper
will appear less remote.
_Paternal, filial, brotherly, and sisterly_ love, comparatively weak and
undeveloped in man, are indeed almost absent in the lower animals. Birds
of the same brood do not recognise each other after they have left their
nest; and a dog will not hesitate to attack his own brother as a
stranger after a year’s separation. The part which a male bird takes in
feeding and protecting the young is, as Horwicz suggests, an element of
his conjugal rather than his paternal feeling; and a young animal that
would risk its own life in defence of its mother or father is yet to be
heard from.
_Friendship_, however, does exist between animals, as we have already
seen; and not only among animals of the same species, but of different
species. “Happy families” of animals commonly hostile to each other have
been known outside of the showman’s cage. Büchner cites instances of
friendship between a robin and a cat; a fox and duck; dog and deer; cat
and mouse; and even such absurdly incongruous cases of attachment as
between a crow and a bull; a dog and an elephant; a cat and a
rattlesnake. But the deepest feeling of friendship which any animal is
capable of feeling is undoubtedly the dog’s love of his master.
“Professor Braubach,” says Darwin, “goes so far as to maintain that a
dog looks on his master as on a god.” “It is said,” he adds in a
footnote, “that Bacon long ago, and the poet Burns, held the same
notion.”
_Maternal and conjugal_ affection, however, are, as in man, so in
animals, the two strongest forms of family attachment. A French author,
M. Menault, has written a special treatise on _L’Amour Maternel chez les
Animaux_, and Dr. Büchner exclaims, _à propos_: “If a human mother, with
certain destruction staring in her face, dashes into a burning house to
save her imperilled child, and thus finds her own death, this sacrifice
is no greater, no more heroic, than that of a stork-mother who, after
vain efforts to save her brood, is voluntarily burnt up with them in her
nest; or of those elephant-mothers who, as Schweinfurth narrates, in the
African hunting expeditions, when the bushes along the shore are ignited
in order to drive out the elephants, seek to save their young ones by
filling their trunks with water and sprinkling it over them, while they
themselves are roasting.”
How low down in the scale of animal life traces of _conjugal_ attachment
are to be found is shown by the following case cited by Darwin: “An
accurate observer, Mr. Lonsdale, informs me that he placed a pair of
landsnails, one of which was weakly, into a small and ill-provided
garden. After a short time the strong and healthy individual
disappeared, and was traced by its track of slime over a wall into an
adjoining well-stocked garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had
deserted its sickly mate, but after an absence of twenty-four hours it
returned, and apparently communicated the result of its successful
exploration, for both then started along the same track and disappeared
over the wall.” Again, the naturalist, Mr. Bate, experimented on the
conjugal feelings of _Gammarus marinus_, or the sandskipper common on
English shores, by separating a male from its female, and imprisoning
both in the same vessel with many individuals of the same species. “The
female, when thus divorced, soon joined the others. After a time the
male was put again into the same vessel; and he then, after swimming
about for a time, dashed into the crowd, and without any fighting at
once took away his wife. This fact shows that in the Amphipoda, an order
low in the scale, the males and females recognise each other, and are
mutually attached.”
Concerning birds, Darwin remarks: “It has often been said that parrots
become so deeply attached to each other that when one dies the other
pines for a long time; but Mr. Jenner Weir thinks that with most birds
the strength of their affection has been much exaggerated. Nevertheless,
when one of a pair in a state of nature has been shot, the survivor has
been heard for days afterwards uttering a plaintive call; and Mr. St.
John gives various facts proving the attachment of mated birds. Mr.
Bennett relates that in China after a drake of the beautiful mandarin
Teal had been stolen, the duck remained disconsolate, though sedulously
courted by another mandarin drake, who displayed before her all his
charms. After an interval of three weeks the stolen drake was recovered,
and instantly the pair recognised each other with extreme joy.” “Dr.
Buller says (_Birds of New Zealand_) that a male king lory was killed,
and the female ‘fretted and moped, refused her food, and died of a
broken heart.’”
But there are exceptions to this rule of conjugal attachment and
fidelity, as is shown in the following quotation, which completes the
curious analogy between human and bird love connubial: “Mr. Harrison
Weir has himself observed, and has heard from several breeders, that a
female pigeon will occasionally take a strong fancy for a particular
male, and will desert her own mate for him. Some females, according to
another experienced observer, Riedel, are of a profligate disposition,
and prefer almost any stranger to their own mate. Some amorous males,
called by our English fanciers ‘gay birds,’ are so successful in their
gallantries that, as Mr. H. Weir informs me, they must be shut up on
account of the mischief which they cause.”
So there are Don Juans even among pigeons!
_Intermarriages_ or mixed unions also occur among birds. Says Darwin:
“It is certain that distinct species of birds occasionally pair in a
state of nature and produce hybrids. Many instances could be given: thus
Macgillivray relates how a male blackbird and female thrush ‘fell in
love with each other,’ and produced offspring. Several years ago
eighteen cases had been recorded of the occurrence in Great Britain of
hybrids between the black grouse and pheasant.... A male widgeon, living
with females of the same species, has been known to pair with a pintail
duck. Lloyd describes the remarkable attachment between a shield-drake
and a common duck. Many additional instances could be given; and the
Rev. E. S. Dixon remarks that ‘those who have kept many different
species of geese together, well know what unaccountable attachments they
are frequently forming, and that they are quite as likely to pair and
rear young with individuals of a race (species) apparently the most
alien to themselves, as with their own stock.’”
In their _marriages_ animals have anticipated man in every possible
arrangement—promiscuity, polygamy, monogamy, polyandry. According to
Darwin, “Many mammals and some few birds are polygamous, but with other
animals belonging to the lower classes I have found no evidence of this
habit.” He has not “heard of any species in the Orders of Cheiroptera,
Edentata, Insectivora, and Rodents being polygamous, excepting that
among the Rodents the common rat, according to some rat-catchers, lives
with several females.” Among the terrestrial carnivora the lion seems to
be the only polygamist, while the marine carnivora are “eminently
polygamous.”
Domestication sometimes has the bad effect of converting wild birds to
Mormonism. Thus “the wild duck is strictly monogamous, the domestic duck
highly polygamous.”
It is among wild birds in general that the most remarkable cases of
conjugal attachment in the animal world are found. And since most birds
are monogamous, pairing sometimes even for life, we may hence draw the
important conclusion that among animals, as among men, monogamy seems to
favour the development of conjugal love. Polygamy, on the other hand,
everywhere introduces jealousies, rivalries, discords. Among Oriental
nations where polygamy prevails, each wife must have her own apartments,
and no one would dare to taste food prepared by another, for fear of
poison. On some animals polygamy seems to have a similar effect, for we
read that “Mr. Bartlett believes that the Lophophorus, like many other
gallinaceous birds, is naturally polygamous, but two females cannot be
placed in the same cage with a male, as they fight so much together.”