€hap. XIII. 
BIRDS. 
39 
even in tlie breeding-season, shot a female which had 
any smell of musk.” So powerful is this odour during 
the pairing-season, that it can be detected long before 
the bird can be seen.^ On the whole, birds appear to 
be the most msthetic of all animals, excepting of course 
man, and they have nearly the same taste for the beau- 
tiful as we have. This is shewn by our enjoyment of 
the singing of birds, and by our women, both civilised 
and savage, decking their heads with borrowed plumes, 
and using gems which are hardly more brilliantly 
eoloured than the naked skin and wattles of certain 
birds. 
Before treating of the characters with which we are 
here more particularly concerned, I may just allude to 
certain differences between the sexes which apparently 
depend on differences in their habits of life ; for such 
cases, though common in the lower, are rare in the 
higher classes. Two humming-birds belonging to the 
genus Eustephanus, wdiich inhabit the island of Juan 
Fernandez, were long thought to be specifically distinct, 
but are now known, as Mr. Gould informs me, to be the 
sexes of the same species, and they differ slightly in the 
form of the beak. In another genus of humming-birds 
^(Gryjpus), the beak of the male is serrated along the 
margin and hooked at the extremity, thus differing 
much from that of the female. In the curious Neomor- 
pha of New Zealand, there is a still wider difference in 
the form of the beak ; and Mr. Gould has been informed 
that the male with his straight and stout beak ” tears 
oft" the bark of trees, in order that the female may 
feed on the uncovered larvm with her weaker and more 
•curved beak. Something of the same^ kind may be 
observed with our goldfinch (Carduelis elegans), for I 
Gould, ‘ Handbook to the Birds of Australia,’ 1865, vol. ii. p. 383. 
