Transactions. 67 



to deny this lovely bird all sesthetical faculty. Evidently 

 here too we have a connoisseur. The eye which is delight- 

 ed with cleanliness, gracefulness, and colour, has its preferen- 

 ces. He who asks of what avail is beauty, of what avail are 

 plumes of gi-een and blue, of spangles of the ruby, or spangles 

 of the emerald in the struggle for life, may be answered 

 thus : if the love of beauty be so powerful in this bird as to 

 neutralize the demands of appetite, we may well infer that 

 at the pairing season the loveliest birds will be attracted 

 towards each other, and thus the charms of beauty greater 

 than that of strength secure for itself a perpetuity in the 

 battle of life. 



Mr. Montagu has well described the manner in which cer- 

 tain singing-birds, as nightingales, woo the females and draw 

 them towards them by love-burdened ditties, conquering 

 their mates, or exciting the preference of the females by 

 their valour and their song. Mr. Montagu thinks that the ear 

 alone is that by which the female selects its mate, but to this 

 it has been justly objected that nature at this season is at as 

 much pains to please the eye as to delight the ear. Every 

 one must have noticed that wonderful renewal of ornament 

 in plumage, that wedding suit, as the French call it, which 

 spring bequeaths to all the feathered tribes, suggesting to 

 the most superficial observers that fine feathers play a part 

 similar to fine garments with a human biide.* What we have 

 already said of the Bird-of-Paradise will have been under- 

 stood by every one who has paid attention to the Peacock. 

 We have admired the gracefulness of this bird's curving 

 neck, its hues of gold and azure, green and brown, the eye- 

 like or moonlike spots on its train dissolving or growing 

 brighter — its metallic lustre intermixing with its gloomier 

 tapestries, and the delicate crest of it faintly set with stars, 

 but what is more to the point, we could not deny that the 

 Peacock was sharing our feelings, that it was strutting about, 

 and by means of powerful muscles was displaying itself to 



* As with melody so with beauty the male generally far excels the female. 



