Term Papers on Courting In Nature

Term Paper Title	Courting In Nature
# of Words	884
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.54

Courting in Nature

For some time she had watched his movements, appearing coyly in his
haunts.  And now, had it paid off?  Doubtless, he was in love. His
muscles were taut; he swooped through the air more like an eagle
than a Greylag gander.  The only problem was, it was not for her that
he then landed in a flurry of quacks and wingbeats, or for her that he
dashed off surprise attacks on his fellows.  It was, rather, for
another - for her preening rival across the Bavarian lake.

Poor goose.  Will she mate with the gander  of her dreams?  Or will
she trail him for years, laying infertile egg clutches as proof of her
faithfulness?  Either outcome  is possible in an animal world
marked daily by scenes of courtship, spurning and love triumphant.
And take note:  these are not the imaginings of some Disney screen-16
writer.  Decades ago Konrad Lorenz, a famed Austrian naturalist,
made detailed studies of Greylags and afterwards showed no
hesitation in using words like love, grief and even embarrassment to
describe the behavior of these large, social birds.
At the same time he did not forget that all romance - animal and
human - is tied intimately to natural selection.  Natural selection
brought on the evolution of males and females during prehistoric
epochs when environmental change was making life difficult for
single-sex species such as bacteria and algae.  Generally, these
reproduced by splitting into identical copies of themselves.  New
generations were thus no better than old ones at surviving in an
altered world.  With the emergence of the sexes, however,
youngsters acquired the qualities of two parents.  This meant that
they were different from both - different and perhaps better at
coping with tough problems of survival.  At the same time, nature
had to furnish a new set of instincts which would make "parents"
out of such unreflective entities as mollusks and jellyfish..

The peacock's splendid feathers, the firefly's flash, the humpback
whale's resounding bellow - all are means these animals have
evolved to obey nature's command:  "Find a mate.  Transmit your
characteristics through time!"  But while most males would accept
indiscriminate mating, females generally have more on their minds.
In most species, after all, they take on reproduction's hardest
chores such as carrying young, incubating eggs and tending
newborns.  Often they can produce only a few young in a lifetime.
(Given half a chance, most males would spawn thousands.)  So it's no
surprising that the ladies are choosy.  They want to match their
characteristics with those of a successful mate.  He may flap his
wings or join a hockey team, but somehow he must show that his
offspring will not likely be last to eat or first in predatory jaws.

Strolling through the Australian underbrush that morning, she had
seen nothin...

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