280 THE BIRD WATCHER 
guided by the variatiqge offered for it to work upon ; 
and though the final result of this, if such variations 
were affected by sex, might appear very surprising, 
there would be nothing remarkable in the process by 
which it had been arrived at. Must not, in fact, a 
difference of taste as between the two sexes—and that 
often a very decided one—in any case exist? For the 
male bird of paradise, let us say, is attracted by the 
dull hen, whilst she, presumably, admires only the 
resplendent cock. Beauty is only a relative term, and 
even the plainest bird possesses a good deal of it. We 
may, of course, say that it is only the hen bird, in 
such cases, which can be said to admire, but it would 
be difficult, I think, to defend this view. Both are 
sexually excited, and the eye is a channel for both. 
These, then, are my arguments in favour of a 
process of intersexual selection in nature, and | think 
that those men, at any rate, who grant taste and choice 
to female animals, should be prepared to grant it, also, 
to their own sex, though the thinking woman, perhaps, 
may be expected to take another view. But, of course, 
I know that there are still numbers of people who do 
not accept the theory—or, as I would prefer to call it, 
the fact—of sexual selection at all, even in its nar- 
rower scope. I believe, however, that the chariness 
and hesitation which has been shown in adopting the 
latter of Darwin’s two great principles, is a survival of 
that attitude of mind which caused such opposition to 
his whole teaching. Man’s body is one thing, but his 
mind—especially all those supposed high things in it 
