THE FINCHES 105 



indifferent, in despite of Darwin and common sense, she was held 



to be. 



Whether she really is, however, should be, as I hold without 

 disrespect to either of those two great names a matter for every 



man ' s at least for every ornithologist's field observation ; and, for 



my own part, since I have seen her, on various occasions, very much 

 other than indifferent to the extent of watching battles urged on 

 her account, assaulting one or other of the single combatants, driving 

 off third-comers, and choosing, in the plainest way, males that she as 

 plainly preferred l I hold her to be only so, occasionally, and as even 

 women sometimes unaccountably are, in the presence of masculine 

 pose and charm. In fact, I know her to be impressionable, though 

 capricious, and sometimes cold, and so, since I am not at all smitten 

 with what I call man- or Yahoo-pride, and am of opinion, more- 

 over, that, even if the hen bird had an entire want of the esthetic 

 sense, she would share that almost as much with us as I think she 

 does its possession, I explain all these doings and wooings and 

 plumatic or other adornments, whether of finches or other birds, as 

 due to the agency of sexual selection, which appears to me to be as 

 well made out as natural selection itself, and a very great deal better 

 than either warning coloration or recognition marks. If it has had 

 to wait thus long for acceptance, it is because it attacks that last 

 stronghold of man's self-worship now that the body has gone the 

 mind. That a bird should admire ! That a butterfly should be 

 tickled as we are ! 



Nuptial display, either vocal or ornamental, is, of course, in 

 finches as in birds generally, the prelude to nesting and general 

 domestic activities, and in our pleasant little lesser redpoll Linota 

 rufescens we can point that is to say, we might once have pointed 

 to one of the family, at any rate, belonging to this country, who, in the 

 opinion of at least one ornithologist of repute, does that is, did us 

 the distinguished honour of breeding nowhere else. He is also this 



1 See footnote 1, p. 104. 

 O 



