alia, and although
they certainly appreciate the power of song, yet I fully admit that it
is astonishing that the females of many birds and some mammals should be
endowed with sufficient taste to appreciate ornaments, which we have
reason to attribute to sexual selection; and this is even more
astonishing in the case of reptiles, fish and insects. But we really
know little about the minds of the lower animals. It cannot be supposed,
for instance, that male birds of paradise or peacocks should take such
pains in erecting, spreading and vibrating their beautiful plumes before
the males for no purpose. We should remember the fact given on excellent
authority in a former chapter that several peahens, when debarred from
an admired male, remained widows during a whole season rather than pair
with another bird.

Nevertheless, I know of no fact in natural history more wonderful than
that the female Argus pheasant should appreciate the exquisite shading
of the ball-and-socket ornaments and the elegant patterns on the wing
feathers of the male. He who thinks that the male was created as he now
exists must admit that the great plumes, which prevent the wings from
being used for flight and which, as well as the primary feathers, are
displayed in a manner quite peculiar to this one species during the act
of courtship, and at no other time, were given to him as an ornament. If
so, he must likewise admit that the female was created and endowed with
the capacity of appreciating such ornaments. I differ only in the
conviction that the male Argus pheasant acquired his beauty gradually,
through the females having preferred during many generations the more
highly ornamented males; the esthetic capacity of the females having
been advanced through exercise or habit just as our own taste is
gradually improved. In the male, through the fortunate chance of a few
feathers not having been modified, we can distinctly see how simple
spots with a little fulvous [tawny] shading on one side may have been
developed by small steps into the wonderful ball-and-socket ornaments;
and it is probable that they were actually thus developed.

Every one who admits the principle of evolution, and yet feels great
difficulty in admitting that female mammals, birds, reptiles and fish,
could have acquired the high taste implied by the beauty of the males,
and which generally coincides with our own standard, should reflect that
the nerve-cells of the brain in the hig