THE HERON'S HAUNT. 109 



basis for aesthetic selection to work upon. 

 Mr. Darwin has shown that birds in early 

 times were less brightly coloured, and less 

 decorated than their modern descendants. 

 He might also have added that the most 

 central and least specialised modern members 

 of each great group are similarly wanting in 

 ornamental adjuncts. They represent the 

 earliest surviving forms of those into which 

 the original type has split up ; they have de- 

 parted least from the primitive organisation 

 of the class to which they belong. Con- 

 versely, the most highly developed and 

 specialised members of each group are those 

 among which we most often find extremely 

 marked aesthetic decoration. The dominant 

 creatures of every class can afford to pay most 

 attention to beauty ; the less advanced and 

 more skulking kinds are glad enough to eke 

 out a precarious livelihood for themselves as 

 best they may, and so run rather towards 

 protective colouring and unobtrusive forms 

 than towards conspicuous ornamentation. 



