656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a daisy, the wing of a butterfly, the tail-covert of a peacock, such 

 gradual merging of tint in tint could hardly fail to occur spontaneously, 

 as a product of evolution ; while the comparatively definite marking 

 off of special spots or lines, as in some orchids and other flowers, could 

 only present itself as a result of very intense competition between 

 species, carried on under highly complex conditions. The views set 

 forth by Mr. Bates upon the pi-ogressive modification of patches or 

 regions in a butterfly's wing, and by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace on 

 the feathers of the peacock and the Argus-pheasant, though widely 

 differing as to the particular mode of their evolution, yet alike con- 

 vince us that the inevitable result must be just such a graceful run- 

 ning together of contiguous colors as we actually find to obtain in every 

 case. 



Lastly, we arrive at the sensibility to form, symmetry, arrange- 

 ment of patterns, and the like higher sensuous aesthetic feelings, which 

 remains in the eyes of many the chief stumbling-block in the way of 

 accepting the theory of sexual selection. The pleasure derived from 

 sweet tastes and fragrant perfumes is so purely sensuous that nobody 

 doubts its universal existence among all the higher animals. The 

 pleasure derived from musical sounds and bright colors, though more 

 intimately bound up in the human consciousness with intellectual and 

 higher emotional elements, yet contains so large a factor of mere 

 sensuous stimulation that we can easily conceive of it as appealing to 

 the ears and eyes of insects and vertebrates. But the still higher 

 pleasure derived from graceful curves, symmetrical ornamentation, 

 and elaborate tracery is so largely made up of intellectual feelings, 

 and so largely supplemented in our own case by associations of costli- 

 ness, human handicraft, or imitative skill, that we find it hard at first 

 sight to believe in the existence of similar feelings among pheasants of 

 the Indian jungle, antelopes of the African plains, or monkeys of the 

 Brazilian forest. Even here, however, a little consideration may con- 

 vince us that the aesthetic appreciation of form and its connected 

 varieties is not necessarily above the narrow intellectual faculties of 

 the higher vertebrates and articulates at least. 



In the first place, if we look at the human race itself we shall find 

 that a comparatively high susceptibility to form occurs even among 

 very low races. Indeed, most exquisite patterns are produced by sav- 

 ages whose taste in color is apparently far less developed than that of 

 parrots, humming-birds, and fruit-pigeons. The tattooed tracery of 

 the Polynesians and many other savage tribes presents beautiful de- 

 signs of which even a European decorative artist need not be ashamed. 

 The New Zealand canoes, the paddles and clubs of the Admiralty-Isl- 

 anders, the shields of the Zooloos, are all most graceful in their shapes 

 and most daintily wrought with interlacing patterns in carved work. 

 Calabashes, coeoanuts, ostrich-eggs, and other early vessels are always 

 cut in sections which exactly coincide with the demands of the most 



