Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Theory, Animal Behaviour, Amusement

    Discusses how the 'origin of "the season" has been the subject of many and varying theories', and comments that the 'man of science considers it a development of the nesting time' (821). Warns that the 'coming democracy' may be the 'death-blow to all season whatever', but reflects that 'human nature must have its amusements, and even if enlightened thinkers abolish those now existing, the young people will continue to flirt and the old fogies to gossip at scientific soirées, debating clubs, and women's parliaments' (837).