the males are exceptionally eager.  Steinach, who has made many valuable experiments on these animals (Archiv fuer die Gesammte Physiologie, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that, when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing, becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her.  If, however, he is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active part, trying to attract him in every way.  The impetuosity during heat of female animals of various species, when at length admitted to the male, is indeed well known to all who are familiar with animals.

I have referred to the frequency with which, in the human species,—­and very markedly in early adolescence, when the sexual impulse is in a high degree unconscious and unrestrainedly instinctive,—­similar manifestations may often be noted.  We have to recognize that they are not necessarily abnormal and still less pathological.  They merely represent the unseasonable apparition of a tendency which in due subordination is implied in the phases of courtship throughout the animal world.  Among some peoples and in some stages of culture, tending to withdraw the men from women and the thought of women, this phase of courtship and this attitude assume a prominence which is absolutely normal.  The literature of the Middle Ages presents a state of society in which men were devoted to war and to warlike sports, while the women took the more active part in love-making.  The medieval poets represent women as actively encouraging backward lovers, and as delighting to offer to great heroes the chastity they had preserved, sometimes entering their bed-chambers at night.  Schultz (Das Hoefische Leben, Bd. i, pp. 594-598) considers that these representations are not exaggerated.  Cf.  Krabbes, Die Frau im Altfranzoesischen Karls-Epos, 1884, p. 20 et seq.; and M.A.  Potter, Sohrab and Rustem, 1902, pp. 152-163.

Among savages and barbarous races in various parts of the world it is the recognized custom, reversing the more usual method, for the girl to take the initiative in courtship.  This is especially so in New Guinea.  Here the girls almost invariably take the initiative, and in consequence hold a very independent position.  Women are always regarded as the seducers:  “Women steal men.”  A youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous, would be called a woman, and be laughed at by the girls.  The usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl’s constancy before decisively accepting her advances. (A.C.  Haddon, Cambridge