374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



faintly purplish blue, would not have exhibited those splendid eye-like 

 spots which reflect the sunlight in a mingled mass of glory from this 

 perfect tail-covert. Only in the most fitting positions for decoration 

 do birds, as a rule, expend their choicest designs.* 



The feathers of the ostrich naturally occur first to the human 

 investigator of aesthetic taste in birds. The quills of the wing and 

 tail, here purely ornamental in their function, compose the well-known 

 silky plumes of commerce. The common crane has also beautiful 

 elongated wing-feathers, which fall on either side of the tail in grace- 

 ful waving masses. If we may trust the doubtful pictures which have 

 come down to us, that grotesque and gigantic pigeon, the dodo, pos- 

 sessed similar tufts of ornamental plumage. But the great order of 

 gallinaceous birds, or the hen and turkey tribe, display the most mag- 

 nificent tails of all, so familiarly known in the peacock and the pheas- 

 ant family, as well as in the humbler denizens of our English farm- 

 yards. 



Crests form another favorite ornamental device among birds, occur- 

 ring independently in the most different orders. The graceful tuft of 

 the gray heron must have attracted the attention of every observer. 

 Among the pheasants similar decorative adjuncts are common; and 

 the curassow shows this peculiarity in a very beautiful form. With 

 parrots and cockatoos, crests are of frequent occurrence, and they 

 make equally striking features among the humming-birds and sun-birds. 

 Indeed, it may be roughly asserted that those birds which seek their 

 food among flowers and fruits, and which consequently exhibit a taste 

 for bright colors, are also the species in which ornamental tufts of 

 feathers most frequently occur. But crests are also found even among 

 the generally somber and inartistic birds of prey, being by no means 

 unusual in the owls and hawks, while the serpent-eating secretary-bird 

 derives his queer name from the fancied resemblance of his top-knot 

 to a pen stuck behind the ear. Other well-known instances of crested 

 species are the hoopoe, the wax-wing, the golden-crested wren, and 

 many jays. But the umbrella-bird, a Brazilian fruit-crow, exhibits 

 the fullest development of this particular ornament, having the whole 

 head 'covered by a dome of slender, shining blue feathers, about five 

 inches in length by four and a half in breadth. It may be added that 

 almost all birds which possess these ornaments possess also the power 

 of raising or depressing them at will; and that during the season of 

 courtship the male birds constantly expand all their charms before the 

 eyes of their admiring mates. We have all seen this ostentatious dis- 

 play ourselves in the case of the peacock, the turkey, and the barn-door 

 fowl. It proves almost beyond a doubt the aesthetic purpose and func- 



' I say " as a rule," because the hornbills, toucans, vultures, certain pigeons, and a 

 few other species, offend against our ordinary human canons of taste ; but the ornaments 

 of birds seldom or never render them ridiculous in our eyes, like those of many highly 

 decorated monkeys. 



