6 1 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sist on elaborate special preparations extending through years ; while 

 for the most complex function, to be adequately discharged not even 

 by the wisest, we require no preparation ! 



How absurd are the prevailing conceptions about these matters, 

 we shall see still more clearly on turning to consider that more special 

 discipline which should precede the study of Sociology ; namely, the 

 study of Mental Science. 



-- 



THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF BIRDS. 



THE Popular Science Review for July contains some interesting but 

 too brief remarks by Mr. Leith Adams on the " Mental Powers 

 of Birds," which it is interesting to define specifically as distinguished 

 from the mental powers of other animals of the higher order of saga- 

 city. This we will briefly do. First, it would appear from Mr. Dar- 

 win's discussions though Mr. Leith Adams hardly refers to them 

 that none of the lower orders of creatures have so keen an apprecia- 

 tion of beauty as many kinds of birds, and certainly that none turn 

 this taste for beauty so deliberately to the purpose of social amuse- 

 ment. That great naturalist has described how some kinds of birds 

 really celebrate festivities very closely approaching to our wedding 

 fdtes, balls, and garden parties, in places carefully decorated and 

 arranged by the birds for the purpose of social gatherings, and which 

 are not used for their actual dwelling-places. The best evidence, says 

 Mr. Darwin, of a taste for the beautiful " is afforded by the three 

 genera of Australian bower-birds. . . . Their bowers where the sexes 

 congregate and play strange antics " (at all stranger than our waltzes 

 and quadrilles?) u are differently constructed; but, what most concerns 

 us is, that they are decorated in a different manner by the different 

 species. The satin bower-bird collects gayly-colored articles, such as 

 the blue tail-feathers of paroquets, bleached bones and shells, which it 

 sticks between the twigs, or arranges at the entrance. Mr. Gould 

 found in one bower a neatly-worked stone tomahawk and a slip of 

 blue cotton, evidently procured from a native encampment. These 

 objects are continually rearranged and carried about by the birds 

 while at play. The bower of the spotted bower-bird is beautifully 

 lined with tall grasses, so disposed that the heads nearly meet, and 

 the decorations are very profuse. Round stones are used to keep the 

 grass-stems in their proper places, and to make divei'gent paths lead- 

 ing to the bower. The stones and shells are often brought from a 

 great distance. The regent-bird, as described by Mr. Ramsay, orna- 

 ments its short bower with bleached land-shells belonging: to five or 

 six species, and ' with berries of various colors, blue, red, and black, 



