BIRDS — ^ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 281 



their bowers, decorated and kept them in repair, for 

 several years. In a letter from the late Mr. F. Strange, 

 it is said : — 



My aviary is now tenanted by a pair of satin-birds, which 

 for the last two months have been constantly engaged in con- 

 structing bowers. Both sexes assist in their erection, but the 

 male is the principal workman. At times the male will chase 

 the female all over the aviary, then go to the bower, pick up a 

 gay feather or a large leaf, utter a curious kind of note, set all 

 his feathers erect, run round the bower, and become so excited 

 that his eyes appear ready to start from his head, and he con- 

 tinues opening first one wing and then another, uttering a low 

 whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking 

 up something from the ground, until at last the female goes 

 gently towards him, when after two turns round her, he sud- 

 denly makes a dash, and the scene ends.' ^ 



I have said that if this case stood alone it would con- 

 stitute ample evidence that some animals possess emotions 

 of the beautiful. But the case does not stand alone. 

 Certain humming-birds, according to Mr. Grould, decorate 

 the outsides of their nests ' with the utmost taste ; they 

 instinctively fasten thereon beautiful pieces of flat lichen, 

 the larger pieces in the middle, and the smaller on the- 

 part attached to the branch. Now and then a pretty 

 feather is intertwined or fastened to the outer sides, the 

 stem being always so placed that the feather stands out 

 beyond the surface.' Several other instances might be 

 rendered of the display of artistic feeling in the architec- 

 ture of birds ; and, as Mr. Darwin so elaborately shows,, 

 there can scarcely be question that these animals take 

 emotional pleasure in surveying beautiful plumage in the 

 opposite sex, looking to the careful manner in which the 

 males of many species display their fine colours to the 

 females. Doubtless the evidence of aesthetic feeling is 

 much stronger in the case of birds than it is in that of 

 any other class ; but if this feeling is accepted as a suflS- 

 cient cause, through sexual selection, of natural decoration 

 in the members of this class, we are justified in attribut- 

 ing to sexual selection, and so to aesthetic feeling, natural 



' Gould, Birds of Australia, vol. i., pp. 442-45. 



