I am glad to
find myself on this point in agreement with Professor Groos, who,
in his elaborate study of the play-instinct, has reached the same
conclusion. So far from being the mere heartless play by which a
woman shows her power over a man, Groos points out that coquetry
possesses "high biological and psychological significance," being
rooted in the antagonism between the sexual instinct and inborn
modesty. He refers to the roe, who runs away from the stag--but
in a circle. (Groos, _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 339;
also the same author's _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 288 _et
seq._) Another example of coquetry is furnished by the female
kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), which will spend all the morning in
teasing and flying away from the male, but is careful constantly
to look back, and never to let him out of her sight. (Many
examples are given by Buechner, in _Liebe und Liebesleben in der
Tierwelt_.) Robert Mueller (_Sexualbiologie_, p. 302) emphasizes
the importance of coquetry as a lure to the male.
"It is quite true," a lady writes to me in a private letter,
"that 'coquetry is a poor thing,' and that every milkmaid can
assume it, but a woman uses it principally in self-defence, while
she is finding out what the man himself is like." This is in
accordance with the remark of Marro, that modesty enables a woman
"to put lovers to the test, in order to select him who is best
able to serve the natural ends of love.
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