SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 793 



breed — preferring not only tlie more attractive, but at the 

 same time the more vigorous and victorious males. 



Although we have some positive evidence that birds 

 appreciate bright and beautiful objects, as with the bower- 

 birds of Australia, and although they certainly appreciate 

 the power of song, yet I fully admit that it is astonishing 

 that the females of many birds and some mammals should 

 be endowed with sufl&cient taste to appreciate ornaments, 

 which we have reason to attribute to sexual selection ; and 

 this is even more astonishing in the case of reptiles, fish, 

 and insects. But we really know little about the minds 

 of the lower animals. It cannot be supposed, for instance, 

 that male birds of paradise or peacocks should take such 

 pains in erecting, spreading, and vibrating their beautiful 

 plumes before the females for no purpose. We should re- 

 member the fact, given on excellent authority in a former 

 chapter, that several peahens, when debarred from an ad- 

 mired male, remained widows during a whole season rather 

 than pair with another bird. 



Nevertheless I know of no fact in natural history more 

 wonderful than that the female Argus pheasant should ap- 

 preciate the exquisite shading of the ball-and-socket orna- 

 ments and the elegant patterns on the wing feathers of the 

 male. He who thinks that the male was created as he now 

 exists must admit that the great plumes which prevent the 

 wings from being used for flight, and which are displayed 

 during courtship and at no other time in a manner quite 

 peculiar to this one species, were given to him as an orna- 

 ment. If so, he must likewise admit that the female was 

 created and endowed with the capacity of appreciating such 

 ornaments. I differ only in the conviction that the male 

 Argus pheasant acquired his beauty gradually, through the 

 preference of the females during many generations for the 

 more highly ornamented males; the sssthetic capacity of the 

 females having been advanced through exercise or habit, 

 just as our own taste is gradually improved. In the male, 

 throagh the fortunate chance of a few feathers being left 



