THE HERON'S HAUNT, 107 



of a psychological fact ? And as on each of 

 our minds and brains the picture of the beau- 

 tiful human figure is, as it were, antecedently 

 engraved, may not the ancestral type be 

 similarly engraved on the minds and brains 

 of the wading birds ? If so, would it not be 

 natural to conclude that these birds, having 

 thus a very graceful form as their generic 

 standard of taste, a graceful form with little 

 richness of colouring, would naturally choose 

 as the loveliest among their mates, not those 

 which showed any tendency to more bright- 

 hued plumage (which indeed might be fatal 

 to their safety, by betraying them to their 

 enemies the falcons and eagles), but those 

 which most fully embodied and carried 

 furthest the ideal specific gracefulness of the 

 wading type ? In some such way, it seems 

 to me, the herons, and cranes, and storks, and 

 marabous may have acquired their very dis- 

 tinct and noticeable crests or lappets, v? v.< 

 Forestine flower -feeders and fruit-eaters, 

 especially in the tropics, are almost always 



