A better and more comprehensive statement was reached by Tillier, who, to some extent, may be said to have anticipated Groos.  Darwin, Tillier pointed out, had not sufficiently taken into account the coexistence of combat and courtship, nor the order of the phenomena.  Courtship without combat, Tillier argued, is rare; “there is a normal coexistence of combat and courtship."[25] Moreover, he proceeded, force is the chief factor in determining the possession of the female by the male, who in some species is even prepared to exert force on her; so that the female has little opportunity of sexual selection, though she is always present at these combats.  He then emphasized the significant fact that courtship takes place long after pairing has ceased, and the question of selection thus been eliminated.  The object of courtship, he concluded, is not sexual selection by the female, but the sexual excitement of both male and female, such excitement, he asserted, not only rendering coupling easier, but favoring fecundation.  Modesty, also, Tillier further argued, again anticipating Groos, works toward the same end; it renders the male more ardent, and by retarding coupling may also increase the secretions of the sexual glands and favor the chances of reproduction.[26]

In a charming volume entitled The Naturalist in La Plata (1892) Mr. W.H.  Hudson included a remarkable chapter on “Music and Dancing in Nature.”  In this chapter he described many of the dances, songs, and love-antics of birds, but regarded all such phenomena as merely “periodical fits of gladness.”  While, however, we may quite well agree with Mr. Hudson that conscious sexual gratification on the part of the female is not the cause of music and dancing performances in birds, nor of the brighter colors and ornaments that distinguish the male, such an opinion by no means excludes the conclusion that these phenomena are primarily sexual and intimately connected with the process of tumescence in both sexes.  It is noteworthy that, according to H.E.  Howard ("On Sexual Selection in Birds,” Zooelogist, Nov., 1903), color is most developed just before pairing, rapidly becoming less beautiful—­even within a few hours—­after this, and the most beautiful male is most successful in getting paired.  The fact that, as Mr. Hudson himself points out, it is at the season of love that these manifestations mainly, if not exclusively, appear, and that it is the more brilliant and highly endowed males which play the chief part in them, only serves to confirm such a conclusion.  To argue, with Mr. Hudson, that they cannot be sexual because they sometimes occur before the arrival of the females, is much the same as to argue that the antics of a kitten with a feather or a reel have no relationship whatever to mice.  The birds that began earliest to practise their accomplishments would probably have most chance of success when the females arrived.  Darwin himself said that nothing is commoner than