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becomes for the first time sexually attractive to the big males. Fifi was enchanted by this new experience. Sometimes, when a male was, quite obviously, uninterested in what she had to offer, she would recline close by and, ever hopeful, stare at him. Or rather, stare at a certain portion of his anatomy that was, so far as she was concerned, disappointingly flabby. Once she went so far as to tweak the limp appendage—with highly satisfactory results! It soon became clear that the males regarded Fifi as a most desirable sexual partner. She did not have quite the sex appeal that Flo had once radiated—but in those days she was, after all, younger and less experienced.
    When Pom, in her turn, first became sexually attractive to the adult males she, like Fifi, clearly found the new experience pleasurable and hastened to any male who showed signs of interest. But whereas Fifi had been calm and relaxed when she complied with the sexual demands of the males, Pom crouched before them, tense and nervous, and the moment intercourse was over she leapt away, often screaming. She developed strange, neurotic behaviours. Often, for example, as she went up to a male to greet him, she would utter loud and frenzied pant-barks of submission and, crouching in front of him, dab a hand out towards his face, then leap away. The males were irritated by this and sometimes threatened or even attacked her. And so, in a vicious circle, her nervousness and tension increased. It was scarcely surprising that Pom was far less popular as a sexual partner than Fifi had been at the same age.
    Adolescent female chimpanzees, like their human counterparts, typically go through an infertile phase between menarche and the first conception. For both Fifi and Pom this period lasted for about two years—two years during which, for about ten days each month, they came into oestrus and were sexually attractive and highly receptive to the adult males. These months were
clearly beneficial to Fifi. Although Flo sometimes accompanied her daughter when she went in search of male company, she was old, and Fifi often went without her. And so she learned how to get on in adult society without having to rely on support from her high-ranking mother. As she matured socially and became more self-reliant, she filled out and became stronger too—she would be the more able to cope when she eventually became a mother herself.
    Nevertheless, while Fifi became increasingly independent and worldly-wise, she always rejoined her mother after each period of dalliance with the males. And so she was still very much a part of the family when, in 1968, Flo gave birth to her last baby. Sadly, little Flame only lived for six months, but during that time Fifi, whenever she had the opportunity—when she was not sexually preoccupied with the males—delighted to carry, groom and gently play with the tiny infant, thus gaining additional experience in maternal skills.
    Towards the end of her two-year period of infertility, Fifi was frequently taken off by one or other of her male suitors to the outskirts of the community range. There the couple would remain—if the male could pull it off—isolated from other males, for the duration of Fifi's swelling. It is during such consortships that males have a good chance of siring a child. In fact, though, it is fairly certain that Fifi's first infant was not fathered by a male of her own community, but by one of the Kalande males in the south—for Fifi made a number of visits to their territory, obeying the peculiar urge to wander, to meet and mate with stranger males, that we have observed in most females during late adolescence. And it seems that she conceived during one of those excursions. Once pregnant, Fifi returned to her own home range. Her relationship with Flo and seven-year-old Flint became even closer now that her sexual urge was, for a while, quiescent.
    Pom's adolescence was more turbulent. By then the bond