Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 | Page 5

when a
female is introduced they immediately turn to her; although they are
occasionally altogether indifferent to sex, they never actually prefer
their own sex.[6]
With regard to the playing of the female part by the weaker rats it is
interesting to observe that Féré found among insects that the passive
part in homosexual relations is favored by fatigue; among cockchafers
it was the male just separated from the female who would take the
passive part (on the rare occasions when homosexual relations occurred)
with a fresh male.[7]
Homosexuality appears to be specially common among birds. It was
among birds that it attracted the attention of the ancients, and numerous
interesting observations have been made in more recent times. Thus
Selous, a careful bird-watcher, finds that the ruff, the male of the

Machetes pugnax, suffers from sexual repression owing to the coyness
of the female (the reeve), and consequently the males often resort to
homosexual intercourse. It is still more remarkable that the reeves also,
even in the presence of the males, will court each other and have
intercourse.[8] We may associate this with the high erotic development
of birds, the difficulty with which tumescence seems to occur in them,
and their long courtships.
Among the higher animals, again, female monkeys, even when grown
up (as Moll was informed), behave in a sexual way to each other,
though it is difficult to say how far this is merely in play. Dr. Seitz,
Director of the Frankfurt Zoölogical Garden, gave Moll a record of his
own careful observations of homosexual phenomena among the males
and females of various animals confined in the Garden (Antelope
cervicapra, Bos Indicus, Capra hircus, Ovis steatopyga).[9] In all such
cases we are not concerned with sexual inversion, but merely with the
accidental turning of the sexual instinct into an abnormal channel, the
instinct being called out by an approximate substitute, or even by
diffused emotional excitement, in the absence of the normal object.
It is probable, however, that cases of true sexual inversion--in which
gratification is preferably sought in the same sex--may be found among
animals, although observations have rarely been made or recorded. It
has been found by Muccioli, an Italian authority on pigeons, that
among Belgian carrier-pigeons inverted practices may occur, even in
the presence of many of the other sex.[10] This seems to be true
inversion, though we are not told whether these birds were also
attracted toward the opposite sex. The birds of this family appear to be
specially liable to sexual perversion. Thus M.J. Bailly-Maitre, a breeder
of great knowledge and a keen observer, wrote to Girard that "they are
strange creatures in their manners and customs and are apt to elude the
most persistent observer. No animal is more depraved. Mating between
males, and still more frequently between females, often occurs at an
early age: up to the second year. I have had several pairs of pigeons
formed by subjects of the same sex who for many months behaved as if
the mating were natural. In some cases this had taken place among
young birds of the same nest, who acted like real mates, though both

subjects were males. In order to mate them productively we have had to
separate them and shut each of them up for some days with a
female."[11] In the Berlin Zoölogical Gardens also, it has been noticed
that two birds of the same sex will occasionally become attached to
each other and remain so in spite of repeated advances from individuals
of opposite sex. This occurred, for instance, in the case of two males of
the Egyptian goose who were thus to all appearance paired, and always
kept together, vigorously driving away any female that approached.
Similarly a male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another
species.[12]
Among birds generally, inverted sexuality seems to accompany the
development of the secondary sexual characters of the opposite sex
which is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen
(colored Dorking) crowing like a cock, only somewhat more harshly, as
a cockerel crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen
in the male. This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same
time she laid early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13]
Among ducks, also, it has occasionally been observed that the female
assumes at the same time both male livery and male sexual tendencies.
It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future,
and that sexual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner
among animals than at present it appears to be.
Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been
found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be
possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under