PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



bits of bone, bright pebbles, bits of metal, jewels stolen 

 in the neighbourhood. They say that when Australians 

 miss a ring or a pair of scissors, they search these green 

 tents. Our magpie shows a certain taste for bright 

 objects: people tell tales about him. The "gardener- 

 bird" of New Guinea is still more ingenious, to such a 

 degree that his work is mistaken for human work and 

 people are deceived thereby. With his beak and claws 

 he manages as well and better than peasants, often show- 

 ing a decorative taste which they lack. People search for 

 the "origin of art": there you have it, in the sexual game 

 of a bird. Our aesthetic manifestations are but a develop- 

 ment of this same instinct to please which, in one specie 

 over-excites the male, in another moves the female. If 

 there is a surplus it will be spent aimlessly, for pure 

 pleasure: that is human art; its origin is that of the art 

 of birds and insects. 



The Grande Encyclopedic has given a picture of the 

 gardener-bird's pleasure house. He is called in most 

 scholarly parlance the Amblyornis inornata, because he 

 is lacking in personal beauty. One would take his house 

 for the work of some intelligent delicate pygmy. We 

 find the description of it, after the Italian traveller M. O. 

 Beccari x "In crossing a magnificent forest M. Beccari 

 found himself suddenly in the presence of a little conical 

 cabin, in front of which was a lawn strewn with flowers; 

 he at once recognized the sort of hut which M. Bruijn's 

 huntsmen had described to him as the work of a dark 



'The title of his study is curious "Les Cabanes et les jardins 

 de 1'Amblyornis." (Annales du Musee d'histoire naturelle de 

 Genes, 1876). 



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