48 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS. 
inward) is pushed considerably from the left to make 
it less conspicuous. 
It is “beauty ever onward” with the birds. In 
this they are ahead of us, for we have had our lapses 
into dark periods in art. 
As to the origin of choice, which seems so mysteri- 
ous and freakish, it does not appear unreasonable that 
some of it may not have arisen as a matter of associa- 
tion, as suggested by Grant Allen, though the idea is 
usually ridiculed. If a bird delights in a certain bril- 
liant fruit, leaf, or bud, the chance presence of a sim- 
ilar color, markings, or shape in her mate, especially 
if displayed in a love antic, may cause her to like him 
better than a suitor without the resemblance; and in- 
heritance would easily intensify all this. The splen- 
dor of the hummers and of other tropical birds may 
possibly be thus accounted for. Perhaps the original 
turkey’s snout-like appendage above his beak may 
have suggested to his mate a luscious worm. 
There is only one instance where ornament in 
birds takes on a pictorial or perspective effect—the 
well-known ball-and-socket arrangement of the Argus 
pheasant. Here is an instance where color has per- 
haps been lost, to a slight extent, for this higher artis- 
tic effect of shade and perspective. Mr. Darwin has 
ingeniously shown that these balls in black and white 
have been formed by the merging of slightly chest- 
nut-colored spots. Now, this may have arisen by a 
fancied resemblance, at least in the estimation of the 
female, of these balls to some form of nut of which 
she was fond. When the male displays them, he 
