536 THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



In an earlier chapter we have seen that the mental powers of 

 the higher animals do not differ in kind, though greatly in degree, 

 from the corresponding powers of man, especially of the lower 

 and barbarous races; and it would appear that even their taste 

 for the beautiful is not widely different from that of the Quad- 

 rumana. As the negro of Africa raises the flesh on his face into 

 parallel ridges "or cicatrices, high above the natural surface, 

 "which unsightly deformities, are considered great personal at- 

 "tractions;"^'' — as negroes and savages in many parts of the world 

 paint their faces with red, blue, white, or black bars, — so the male 

 mandrill of Africa appears to have acquired his deeply-furrowed 

 and gaudily-colored face from having been thus rendered attrac- 

 tive to the female. No doubt it is to us a most grotesque notion 

 that the posterior end of the body should be colored for the sake 

 of ornament even more brilliantly than the face; but this is not 

 more strange than that the tails of many birds should be especially 

 decorated. 



With mammals we do not at present possess any evidence that 

 the males take pains to display their charms before the female; 

 and the elaborate manner in which this is performed by male 

 birds and other animals, is the strongest argument In favor of 

 the belief that the females admire, or are excited by, the orna- 

 ments and colors displayed before them. There is, however, a 

 striking parallelism between mammals and birds in all their sec- 

 ondary sexual characters, namely in their weapons for fighting 

 with rival males, in their ornamental appendages, and in their 

 colors. In both classes, when the male differs from the female, 

 the young of both sexes almost always resemble each other, and 

 in a large majority of cases resemble the adult female. In both 

 classes the male assumes the characters proper to his sex shortly 

 before the age of reproduction; and if emasculated at an early 

 period, loses them. In both classes the change of color is some- 

 times seasonal, and the tints of the naked parts sometimes be- 

 come more vivid during the act of courtship. In both classes the 

 male is almost always more vividly or strongly colored than the 

 female, and is ornamented with larger crests of hair or feathers, 

 or other such appendages. In a few exceptional cases the female 

 in both classes is more highly ornamented than the male. With 

 many mammals, and at least in the case of one bird, the male 

 is more odoriferous than the female. In both classes the voice 

 of the male is more powerful than that of the female. Consider- 

 ing this parallelism there can be little doubt that the same cause, 

 whatever it may be, has acted on mammals and birds; and the 

 result, as far as ornamental characters are concerned, may be at- 

 tributed, as it appears to me, to the long-continued preference 



" Sir S. Baker, 'The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,' 1867. 



