xliv INTRODUCTION 



to spread his ruff a little farther, to flatten himself a trifle more completely, to hold his 

 statuesque pose a fraction of a second longer. He is the one to whom we should award 

 the contest, and indeed it is probably he who will succeed in winning a mate. But 

 not from the view point we have taken. However much I should like to do so, I can 

 credit pheasants with no appreciation of the beauties with which they are so generously 

 endowed. 



One would like to think of the Golden hens as playing off one cock against another 

 in conscious mental comparison ; of appraising this ruff with that patch of gold ; this 

 crest of pure spun yellow glass with those stiffened plumes of crimson. To our eyes 

 such comparison is reasonable ; the beauty of colour, of agility, of grace, of the cock 

 pheasants — all these appeal powerfully to our aesthetic sense. But long-continued 

 observation forbids such an interpretation. That the colours and the wonderful 

 pinwheeling of the orange and black ruff about the glowing eye, the infinite patience 

 . striving continually to bring all the pigments and patterns of the body, of both sides 

 at once, constantly to the attention of the female ; that all these are of paramount 

 importance in the courtship we cannot doubt for a moment, but that their effect is 

 similar to the effect upon our minds is another matter. 



Stand close to a dozen Golden Pheasants thus courting, with the hot sun beating 

 down, and idly watch them for many minutes. The circling, dizzy movements and 

 play of blazing colours will soon have its effect, and one presently ceases to watch 

 definite birds, or definite actions ; the whole scene resolving itself into a soothing 

 kaleidoscopic display, one's eyes and mind being content to register only the general 

 polychrome effect. One finds oneself day-dreaming, the eyes focusing on no particular 

 object. It seems to me that the most reasonable explanation of the wonderful 

 performance is of a mental effect upon the hens, not aesthetic, not directly critical or 

 attentional, but a slow, indirect influence upon the nerves, the arousing of a soothing, 

 pleasing emotion which stimulates the wonderful sequence of instincts which will 

 result in nest-making, egg-laying, the weeks of patient brooding and the subsequent 

 care of the young through day and night, in fair weather and in storm. 



This explanation implies no deprecation of the importance of sexual selection. 

 The male who, either by vanquishing his rivals or who by strength and persistency 

 most frequently and effectively displays, will win the hen, regardless of whether the 

 actual process be by aesthetic appreciation or by some subconscious hypnotic-like 

 influence. Yet, when we remember how impossible of definite explanation the term 

 aesthetic appreciation is in ourselves — how no two people in the world have the same 

 appreciation of art, music or nature, and how widely apart are the ideals of beauty 

 of the various races of mankind, we may perhaps say that my explanation has rather 

 worked round in a circle and that it is, after all, a very primitive form of aesthetic feeling. 



We are all familiar with the pitifully degenerate courtship of the barnyard cock, 

 a momentary, awkward trailing of a particoloured wing. This is the lateral display in 

 its simplest form, culminating in the complex performance of the Amherst and the 

 White-tailed Pheasants. The essential effort is to depress the side of the body toward 

 the hen, flatten the back and elevate the opposite so that as much as possible of the 

 colour on both sides is brought into view. The tail is twisted to one side and spread, 

 the crest is raised, or the wattles displayed. Then, if the hen is looking, the bird freezes 



