i895. SEXUAL SELECTION. 329 



exactly what we should expect to find, that while man contemplates 

 personal beauty from a subjective point of view, the " higher 

 animals," as typified by the argus pheasant, take an objective one, 

 and whoever believes in sexual selection must ask himself the 

 question : To what could be attributed their initial differentiation in 

 this respect ? 



I believe no such differentiation has ever taken place, and that, 

 in speculating on the aesthetic faculties of animals, an important 

 element is apt to be disregarded. Man appears to owe what advance 

 he has made in the refinement of these faculties, in the first instance 

 to his social instincts, to the consequent division of labour and the 

 greater leisure derived therefrom. Without leisvire no artistic product 

 can be consciously evoked or recognised as such ; artistic worth does 

 not exist, much less the taste whereby to criticise it. Whatever may 

 be the potential capacity of mind of the " higher animals,"' I hold 

 that their time is too preoccupied with the actual struggle for 

 existence to permit of the formation of the mental qualities ascribed 

 to the argus pheasant. These are a luxury to which human savages, 

 some of them, have not yet attained. 



Somewhat analogous objections apply to the pleasure supposed 

 to be given by the nuptial flights, antics, and dances of many birds. 

 They are of different kinds. The first are such as the aerial evolu- 

 tions of rooks in spring-time, which no one would connect with 

 female preferences. The leks of the capercailzie illustrate the other 

 extreme, and are quoted by Darwin in support of his theory. As it 

 has also more recently been stated that " it is impossible to conceive 

 what motive can be in the mind of a cock other than that of making 

 himself attractive, when he performs his various antics, displays his 

 ornamental plumes, or sings his melodious songs," ' I may translate 

 a passage in a well-known monograph on the capercailzie to the effect 

 that " the hens are by no means always in the neighbourhood of the 

 cock, who, after his balzing, must often go to a considerable distance 

 after them : it is as if a rendezvous had been arranged beforehand." ^ 



If, then, the females do not even trouble to look on, cui bono ? 

 Besides, I think most sportsmen will have found that the hens do not 

 attend regularly at the beginning of the balz-season, hardly ever at 

 the evening performance, and even if they did, any admiration which 

 they might entertain for the postures of their one lord and master, 

 who will not tolerate rivals in his revier, would seem to be 

 gratuitous. 



Strange to say, the higher we ascend into the regions of aesthetic 

 perceptibilities the more hazy the outlook. I cannot bring myself to 

 believe that our fair semi-human ancestors habitually forgot them- 



1 Romanes, " Darwin and after Darwin," i. p. 398; but see also Nineteenth 

 Century, 1893, p. 889. 



2 Dr. W. Wurm, " Das Auerwild," pp. 54 and 62. 



2 A 



