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ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
decoration in other classes, at least as low down in the 
scale as the Articulata. But, as I have said, Mr. Darwin 
has dealt with this whole subject in so exhaustive a manner 
that it is needless for me to enter upon it further than to 
say in general terms, that whatever we may think of his 
theory of sexual selection, his researches have unquestion- 
ably proved the existence of an aesthetic sense in animals. 
The same fact appears to be shown in another way by 
the fondness of song-birds for the music of their mates. 
There can be no doubt that male birds charm their females 
with their strains, and that this, in fact, is the reason why 
song in birds has become developed. Of course it may 
be said that the vocal utterances of birds are not always, 
or even generally, musical ; but this does not affect the 
fact that birds find some aesthetic pleasure in the sounds 
which they emit ; it only shows that the standard of 
aesthetic taste differs in different species of birds as it 
does in different races of men. Moreover, the pleasure 
which birds manifest in musical sounds is not always re- 
stricted to the sounds which they themselves produce. 
Parrots seem certainly to take delight in hearing a piano 
play or a girl sing ; and the following instance, published 
by the musician John Lockman, reveals in a remarkable 
manner the power of distinguishing a particular air, and 
of preferring it above others. He was staying at the house 
of a Mr. Lee in Cheshire, whose daughter used to play ; 
and whenever she played the air of 6 Speri si 5 from 
Handel’s opera of 6 Admetus,’ a pigeon would descend from 
an adjacent dovecot to the window of the room where she 
sat, 6 and listen to the air apparently with the most pleas- 
ing emotions,’ always returning to the dovecot immedi- 
ately the air was finished. But it was only this one air 
that would induce the bird to behave in this way . 1 
Special Habits . 
Under this heading we shall have a number of facts 
to consider, which are more or less of a disconnected cha- 
racter. 
1 Bingley, Animal Biography , vol. ii., p. 220. 
