BioConcepts

courtshippariade (fr.); Balz (ger.)

• Behaviour employed in order to attract sexual partners and prepare the act of sexual reproduction. (HWB)
  category courtship

  1340

  [ame hanen baltzen

  Salbuch des Klosters Engelthal [1340]; acc. to Kehrein, J. & Kehrein, F. (1871). Wörterbuch der Weidmannsprache für Jagd- und Sprachfreunde: 50.]

  c. 1350

  Ich hān bī mangem valze Gehalten wol durch hœren

  Hadamar von Laber [ca. 1350]. Die Jagd: vers 212; acc. to Trübner, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 1 (1939): 222-223: 222.

  1639

  idle courtship: the birds and beasts will do it,/To sate their appetites

  Glapthorne, H. (1639). The Tragedy of Albertus Wallenstein: 35.

  1730

  in fluttering courtship [of birds]

  Thomson, J. (1730). The Seasons: 30 (verse 573).

  1744

  in Courtship to their Mates/Pour forth their little Souls

  Thomson, J. (1730/44). The Seasons: 28 (verse 616f.).

  1744

  in Courtship to their Mates/Pour forth their little Souls

  Thomson, J. (1730/44). The Seasons: 28 (Vers 616-7.).

  1774

  every meadow and marsh resounds with their [birds’] different calls, to courtship or to food

  Goldsmith, O. (1774). A History of the Earth and Animated Nature (1776), vol. VI: 26.

  1874

  The males sedulously court the females, and […] take pains in displaying their beauty before them. Can it be believed that they would thus act to no purpose during their courtship? And this would be the case, unless the females exert some choice and select those males which please or excite them most. If the female exerts such choice, all the above facts on the ornamentation of the males become at once intelligible by the aid of sexual selection.

  Darwin, C. (1874). The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed.: 342.

  1931

  die Balzbewegungen des Männchens [der Elster stimmen] in keiner Weise mit denen der männlichen Dohle überein

  Lorenz, K. (1931). Beiträge zur Ethologie sozialer Corviden (Über tierisches und menschliches Verhalten, vol. I, München 1965, 13-69): 28; cf. id. (1939). Vergleichendes über die Balz der Schwimmenten. J. Ornithol. 87, 172-174.

  1982

  courtship Any behavioural interaction between males and females that facilitates mating.

  Lincoln, R.J., Boxshall, G.A. & Clark, P.F. (1982). A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: 59.

  2011

  Die Balz ist ein Verhalten, das der Anlockung von Geschlechtspartnern und der Vorbereitung des Akts der sexuellen Fortpflanzung dient.

  Toepfer, G. (2011). Historisches Wörterbuch der Biologie. Geschichte und Theorie der biologischen Grundbegriffe, vol. 1: 152.