THE ROBIN'S COURTSHIP 99 



the theory, there is the indisputable fact that male 

 birds do, in the mating season, display themselves 

 in the most ostentatious way to the females ; and 

 nobody can look at a peacock exhibiting his mag- 

 nificent tail coverts, quivering his feathers, and 

 strutting before the hen always keeping in front 

 of her and doubt that he is conscious of his 

 splendour, and is trying to impress her with it. 



There is a certain obviousness about the theory, 

 and yet it has fallen in recent times rather seriously 

 into dispute. The fighting part of it stands all 

 tests ; the best fighters undoubtedly get the mates 

 they want. But the other part of it credits the 

 hen birds with aesthetic perceptions of so extra- 

 ordinarily fine a kind that credulity is very 

 seriously strained. We may admit that even a 

 hen peafowl is capable of realizing that her lord's 

 tail is something very fine as well as large. But 

 the theory supposes much more than that. It 

 supposes that when two peacocks are competing 

 for her favour, she is capable of critically select- 

 ing the one whose amazing blazoning is just a 

 trifle finer than the others, for by this selection of 

 fine differences on the line of improvement the 

 wonder is supposed to have been produced. Belief 

 becomes none the easier when it is remembered 

 that such undoubted aesthetic tendencies as birds 

 display take, for example, the thefts of shining 

 objects and coloured rags by magpies and jack- 

 daws are of the crudest sort. 



