492 TME DESCENT OF MAN 



the sounds thus produced. It is a curious fact that in the 

 same class of animals sounds so different as the drumming 

 of the snipe's tail, the tapping of the woodpecker's beak, 

 the harsh trumpet-like cry of certain water-fowl, the cooing 

 of the turtle-dove, and the song of the nightingale, should 

 all be pleasing to the females of the several species. But 

 we must not judge of the tastes of distinct species by a 

 uniform standard; nor must we judge by the standard of 

 man's taste. Even with man, we should remember what 

 discordant noises, the beating of tom-toms and the shrill 

 notes of reeds, please the ears of savages. Sir S. Baker 

 remarks,'' that, "as the stomach of the Arab prefers the 

 raw meat and reeking liver taken hot from the animal, so 

 does his ear prefer his equally coarse and discordant music 

 to all other." 



Love- Antics and Dances. — The curious love gestures of 

 some birds have already been incidentally noticed, so that 

 little need here be added. In northern America, large 

 numbers of a grouse, the Tetrao phasianellus, meet every 

 morning during the breeding season on a selected level 

 spot, and here they run round and round in a circle of 

 about fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, so that the ground 

 is worn quite bare, like a fairy-ring. In these Partridge- 

 dances, as they are called by the hunters, the birds assume 

 the strangest attitudes, and run round, some to the left and 

 some to the right. Audubon describes the males of a heron 

 {Ardea herodias) as walking about on their long legs with 

 great dignity before the females, bidding defiance to their 

 rivals. With one of the disgusting carrion-vultures {Cath- 

 artesjota) the same naturalist states that "the gesticulations 

 and parade of the males at the beginning of the love-season 

 are extremely ludicrous. ' ' Certain birds perform their love- 

 antics on the wing, as we have seen with the black African 

 weaver, instead of on the ground. During the spring our 



"• "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," 1861, p. 203. 



