FEMALES OF THE SPECIES Sex and Survival in the Animal Kingdom <i> by Bettyann Kevles (Harvard University Press: $10.95) </i>

In the late 19th Century, Charles Darwin attributed to all females of the species the courting behavior he witnessed in upper-middle-class English women: “The female is less eager than the male. She is coy . . . though comparatively passive, (she) generally exerts some choice.” It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th Century that scientists recognized the female “as an active participant in evolution.”

So writes Bettyann Kevles in this fascinating, highly readable work of scholarship. Examining patterns of behavior in animal species (though not Homo sapiens), Kevles describes “the ways females court then mate with males, nurture their young, and cooperate and compete with one another for survival.” The book is as engaging as it is informative: A female lyrebird will pick a male on the length of his tail, because since the tail grows with age, she can judge the maturity of a male and his chances “to survive for many seasons and . . . sire healthy offspring,” Kevles writes, whereas an English moorhen chooses the fattest male because he’ll be able to incubate eggs for the longest time.