Hence with respect to taste, which depends on many elements, but partly
on habit and partly on a love of novelty, there seems no improbability
in animals admiring for a very long period the same general style of
ornamentation or other attractions, and yet appreciating slight changes
in colours, form, or sound.
A SUMMARY OF THE FOUR CHAPTERS ON BIRDS.
Most male birds are highly pugnacious during the breeding-season, and
some possess weapons adapted for fighting with their rivals. But the
most pugnacious and the best armed males rarely or never depend for
success solely on their power to drive away or kill their rivals, but
have special means for charming the female. With some it is the power
of song, or of giving forth strange cries, or instrumental music, and
the males in consequence differ from the females in their vocal organs,
or in the structure of certain feathers. From the curiously diversified
means for producing various sounds, we gain a high idea of the
importance of this means of courtship. Many birds endeavour to charm
the females by love-dances or antics, performed on the ground or in the
air, and sometimes at prepared places. But ornaments of many kinds, the
most brilliant tints, combs and wattles, beautiful plumes, elongated
feathers, top-knots, and so forth, are by far the commonest means. In
some cases mere novelty appears to have acted as a charm. The ornaments
of the males must be highly important to them, for they have been
acquired in not a few cases at the cost of increased danger from
enemies, and even at some loss of power in fighting with their rivals.
The males of very many species do not assume their ornamental dress
until they arrive at maturity, or they assume it only during the
breeding-season, or the tints then become more vivid. Certain
ornamental appendages become enlarged, turgid, and brightly coloured
during the act of courtship. The males display their charms with
elaborate care and to the best effect; and this is done in the presence
of the females. The courtship is sometimes a prolonged affair, and many
males and females congregate at an appointed place. To suppose that the
females do not appreciate the beauty of the males, is to admit that
their splendid decorations, all their pomp and display, are useless;
and this is incredible. Birds have fine powers of discrimination, and
in some few instances it can be shewn that they have a taste for the
beautiful. The females, moreover, are known occasionally to exhibit a
marked preference or antipathy for certain individual males.
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