Originally Posted by chapter 17
WITH mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms. The most timid animals, not provided with any special weapons for fighting, engage in desperate conflicts during the season of love.

Now this is noteworthy. Because when speaking of birds, he also mentioned "the law of battle".
Originally Posted by chapter 13
Law of Battle.- Almost all male birds are extremely pugnacious, using their beaks, wings, and legs for fighting together. We see this every spring with our robins and sparrows. The smallest of all birds, namely the humming-bird, is one of the most quarrelsome. Mr. Gosse* describes a battle in which a pair seized hold of each other's beaks, and whirled round and round, till they almost fell to the ground; and M. Montes de Oca, in speaking or another genus of humming-bird, says that two males rarely meet without a fierce aerial encounter: when kept in cages "their fighting has mostly ended in the splitting of the tongue of one of the two, which then surely dies from being unable to feed."*(2) With waders, the males of the common water-hen (Gallinula chloropus) "when pairing, fight violently for the females: they stand nearly upright in the water and strike with their feet." Two were seen to be thus engaged for half an hour, until one got hold of the head of the other, which would have been killed had not the observer interfered; the female all the time looking on as a quiet spectator.*(3) Mr. Blyth informs me that the males of an allied bird (Gallicrex cristatus) are a third larger than the females, and are so pugnacious during the breeding- season that they are kept by the natives of eastern Bengal for the sake of fighting. Various other birds are kept in India for the same purpose, for instance, the bulbuls (Pycnonotus hoemorrhous) which "fight with great spirit."*(4)

He mentions many, many examples. Males birds, judging by his examples, have a strong tendancy to fight, even to the death over females.

And this is contrary to the proposition that females choose males based upon beauty. A female can't very well choose a dead male. He does weasel around this issue a little, noting that birds can recognize individuals and form preferences; but his arguments don't begin to suffice. Anyone interested is welcome to look, of course. I'll spare the rest.

So why then should the "law of battle" be so supreme among mammals (which can also recognize individuals and form bonds, mind you!), but take a back seat to beauty among birds? The answer is obvious: the birds are beautiful, and their beauty needs to be explained away. Even if the explanation flies in the face of reason.

Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

"To Compel A Man To Furnish Funds For The Propagation Of Ideas He Disbelieves And Abhors Is Sinful And Tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson