HUMAN TRAITS IN THE ANIMALS 



Darwin thinks that birds have " nearly the same 

 taste for the beautiful as we have," except, of 

 course, that in man "the sense of beauty is mani- 

 festly a more complex feeling and is associated with 

 various intellectual ideas." It seems to me that 

 if we mean by taste the appreciation of the beau- 

 tiful, it is as distinctly a human gift as reason 

 is, or as is the sense of humor, or the perception 

 of the spiritual and the ideal. Shall we say the 

 lilies of the field have taste because Solomon in all 

 his glory was not arrayed like one of these ? or that 

 the trees have taste because of their grace and 

 beauty of form? or the insects because of their 

 many beautiful colors and patterns? I doubt if 

 the aesthetic feeling is even rudimentary in birds, 

 any more than are our moral and other intellectual 

 traits. It is thought that the male bird sings to 

 charm the female. Are such discordant notes, then, 

 as the gobble of the turkey, the crowing of the cock, 

 the scream of the peacock or of the guinea hen, to 

 charm the female? When the rooster crows, the 

 nearby hens shake their heads as if the sound 

 pained them, as doubtless it does. 



Why, then, do birds sing ? Is it from a love of 

 beautiful sounds ? I can only answer that it seems 

 to be a trait inherent in the male sexual principle, 

 as much so as are gay plumes and ornamental 

 appendages ; it is one of the secondary sexual char- 

 acteristics. It is very significant that the sweetest 

 151 



