76 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



much more so than the females or than their sparrow 

 cousins in general. 



In the song sparrow, field sparrow, chipping spar- 

 row, and the fox sparrow the male and female are 

 very nearly alike in color. It often becomes neces- 

 sary for the bird-man to examine the internal organs 

 of the bird he is stuffing before he can certainly de- 

 cide its sex. But there is no difficulty whatever in 

 telling the male from the female of the English spar- 

 row. The male is far the more ornate bird. His 

 back is striped with a richer brown ; his head has two 

 splendid dashes of chestnut over the eyes; his throat 

 and breast are splashed with red and lustrous black; 

 his bill is a clear fine black. Altogether the bird is 

 strikingly colored for a sparrow, and this characteris- 

 tic is the more remarkable when we see how quiet and 

 somber is his more modest mate. This brilliancy of 

 male plumage in the presence of the somber color of 

 his mate would seem to indicate that the English spar- 

 row is eye-minded rather than ear-minded. It is true 

 among human beings that most of them are eye- 

 minded. That is to say, they notice things with their 

 eyes chiefly. Memories they have are memories of 

 things seen; recollections of their friends bring up 

 the appearance of their friends. Their language is 

 full of metaphors which imply form and shape. But 

 occasionally we come across an ear-minded person. 



