THE VANITY OF BIRDS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

THE VANITY OF BIRDS

PROBLEM OF THEIR USE OF PLUMAGE

A mysterious problem is presented by the way birds display to best advantage their especial points of beauty, for, lacking mirrors, how should they know where their beauty lies? —where are the touches of colour, out of sight of their eyes, which are crowning glories? How should a goldfinch know the decorative value of the blaze of crimson on his face? Yet he will force the glory of his blaze on the attention of the hen he is courting, turning his head this way and that, as if to hypnotise her by its brilliance. And it is very sure that he makes the most of the gold bars of his wings, as the chaffinch does of his white epaulets. The goldfinch dances to, display those bars, and the way he stretches his wings, fanwise, with the air of a tailor unrolling a cloth of gold, has earned him the name, “proud tailor.” A hundred examples of beauty of which birds seem conscious, though it may be invisible to their own eyes, will crowd to mind. A minor one is presented by that lover of trees, the nuthatch, who will turn himself into a graven and coloured image of a bird as he poses on a treetrunk before a hen, as if to give her the best possible view of his watchetblue and buff tones. To display the buff on his breast he parades before her with stately steps and head pushed forward.