Page 28 - Fables volume 3

“That still doesn’t explain to me why the peacocks need to
demonstrate their superiority so self-destructively. Couldn’t they do
something competitive like jumping or running that might actually be
useful in survival?”
“Couldn’t they?” The peahen stood up and flapped her wings
before resettling on her next batch of eggs. “That is purely
hypothetical. That is like asking why worms come out in the
morning: they have their reasons, arrived at over a thousand birdlives,
and we have ours for getting up early and going after them. Neither
birds nor worms are going extinct. In fact, we may keep each other’s
populations in check.”
“Now, Mother Hen,” her peachick chirped reprovingly. “That’s
merely saying that the peacock’s tail is no different than some less-
taxing means of competing for mates. What is to stop each
succeeding generation of males from getting larger and larger feather
trains until they are unable to sustain them, or none of them can
avoid predators?”
“Nothing at all. But there is no way to stop such a runaway
process. We peafowl may have our standards of fitness, but the
greater world has its own. And no creatures, great or small, can
escape them. For all we know, other birds with our predilection for
showy and frivolous expenditure have come and gone, the harshness
of changing conditions leaving them without the flexibility to adjust.”
The questioning adolescent was disturbed by this revelation.
“Then why don’t some of we females not try to stop the madness,
and pick mates based on more rational criteria?”
“You are welcome to try, my dear. But unless circumstances
change, and change slowly enough not to be catastrophic, your
boychicks would have difficulty finding mates. You would be fighting
your own instincts and the opinions of your peers. This is why
independent thinking so rarely occurs in the birdbrain. Perhaps it is
your father’s fault: among the shimmering tails I considered, his was
not the brightest and the best.”

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