36 TAILS 



tion who can suppose it possible that they should 

 think only of utility in such a question as the 

 disposal of their tails. It is a common notion among 

 those who have acquired some smattering of the 

 theory of evolution that fishes developed into reptiles, 

 reptiles into birds, and birds into beasts ; but this 

 is as wrong as it could be. Whatever the genealogy 

 of the beasts may be, they certainly were not evolved 

 from birds, and are in many respects not above 

 them but below them. These are two independent 

 branches of the tree of living forms, as the Greeks 

 and Romans were branches of the stock of Japheth. 

 The beasts may stand for the conquering Romans if 

 you like, but the birds are the Greeks, and have 

 advanced far beyond them in all emotional and 

 artistic sensibility. They worship in the temple of 

 music and beauty. And, like ourselves, they have 

 found no subject so worthy of the highest efforts 

 of art as their own dress. But the clothing of the 

 body must conform more or less to the figure, and 

 so, for a field in which invention and fancy may 

 sport untrammelled, a lady turns to her hat and a 

 bird to its tail. And by both, with equal heroism, 

 every consideration of mere comfort, convenience, 

 health, or safety is swept aside in obedience to the 

 higher aim. Is this only a flippant jocularity, or 

 is there here in very truth some profound law of 

 the mind revealing itself in spheres seemingly so 

 disconnected ? 

 Look at a peacock. Its train, by the way, is a 



