Especially on our Western plains, where
game-birds abound and the country lies wide open, sportsmen would find
an admirable field in which to follow the bird they flew. Not only would
the restoration of hawking give us a sport much more skilful and refined
than the fox chase, but it would reintroduce the cultivation of the only
creature which, having once been brought to the service of man, has
been permitted to return to its ancestral wild life.

The most striking and by far the most interesting quality exhibited by
our birds is found in their sympathetic motive. In this spiritual
quality, so far as it relates to their own kind, the feathered
creatures are clearly in advance of all other species, including even
man. A single fact, one of great generality, will serve to make this
statement clear. Among the birds we find the only cases of true
marriage which are known in the animal kingdom. In the greater number
of the species the union is for a season, but among many it is for
life. In the case of certain varieties of paroquets, the union is so
indissoluble that, according to common report, a report which seems
much better verified than the most of those concerning the habits of
animals, neither member of the pair will survive the death of the
other. Man, with all his striving towards a better social state, has,
as a whole, not yet attained to the enduring affection for the mate
which is evinced by the greater part of the birds.

In this same connection, we may note that the aesthetic appreciation
among the birds appears to have attained a far higher level than it has
won in any other creatures. There can be little doubt that the
exquisitely beautiful plumage, the unparalleled shapeliness of form and
grace of carriage, as well as the melodies which are uttered by so many
species, all owe their development to a process of sexual selection
which has led the discerning females to prefer the more ornamental of
the males who sought them as partners. If any one will examine the
exquisite shapes and gradations of color which are exhibited in the tail
of the peacock, or of the lyre-bird, or even the coloration of the
game-cock, he may perhaps imagine how prodigious must be the
development of the aesthetic sense in these species, in order that it may
take account of every little betterment which leads towards more perfect
beauty. As it will take the generations of aesthetes many generations
before they are able to "live up to"