296 
SEXUAL SELECTION : MAMMALS. 
Part fl* 
“ we Ilavc instinct excited by mere colour, which had 
“so strong an effect as to get the better of ever)" 
“ thing else. But the male did not require this, the 
“ female bein g an animal somewhat similar to himself, 
“ "’as sufficient to rouse him .” 33 
In an early chapter we have seen that the mental 
powers of the higher animals do not differ in hind, 
though so greatly in degree, from the corresponding 
powers of man, especially of the lower and barbarous 
races; and it would appear that even their taste for the 
beautiful is not widely different from that of the Quad- 
rumana. As the negro of Africa raises the flesh on his 
face into parallel ridges “ or cicatrices, high above the 
“natural surface, which unsightly deformities, are con- 
“ 8ldered great personal attractions;” 34 — as negroes, as 
well as savages in many parts of the world, paint their 
laces with red, blue, white, or black bars,— so the 
male mandrill of Africa appears to have acquired his 
deeply-furrowed and gaudily. coloured face from having- 
been thus rendered attractive to the female. No doubt 
it is to us a most grotesque notion that the posterior 
end of the body should have been coloured for the 
sake of ornament even more brilliantly than the face! 
but this is really not more strange than that the 
tails of many birds should have been especially de- 
With mammals we do not at present possess any evi- 
dence that the males fake paius to display their charms 
ie ore t le female ; and the elaborate manner in which 
this is performed by male birds, is the strongest argu- 
ment in favour of the belief that the females admire, 
“‘Essays and Observations by J. Hunter,’ edited by Owen, 186b 
yol. i. p. 194. J 
Sir S. Baker, ‘ The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,’ 1867. 
