THE ANIMAL SENSE OF BEAUTY 
iot 
in the branches, are seldom still, but always active, 
inquisitive, and alert. 
In the first warm days of early spring they begin to 
collect materials for the bower. The twigs of a birch- 
broom are usually given them for the raw material, 
and these are soon arranged with astonishing skill into 
two short incurved hedges, the tops being pulled over 
to make the bower as nearly like a tunnel as the 
material admits. If they had a larger allowance of 
brooms no doubt the tunnel would be made longer. 
As it is, it is only a section of a gallery. When this is 
complete nothing makes the birds so happy as presents 
of bright-coloured objects to arrange round the sides 
of the play-ground. Unfortunately for the birds, the 
mice, which have no aesthetic perceptions, but are of a 
practical turn of mind, steal everything soft which is 
put in the bower, to make nests for their own young. 
All pieces of coloured paper, rags, and tinsel are carried 
off in the night, or even in the day, so that the birds 
can only rely for permanent ornament on things not 
only bright but hard. But their taste for colour 
may easily be tested by giving them shreds of paper 
of different hues. If it be merely a question of 
colour, not of texture, they usually prefer red, picking 
out the red strips first and trying the effect in different 
parts of the gallery. That their power of selection is 
highly developed may be judged from the following 
example. The writer was looking at the birds early 
in January, when they showed signs of a wish to build, 
and happened to have in his pocket some specimens 
