Those who have closely attended to birds in confinement well know that they often take individual preferences and dislikes: thus Sir R.

Heron has described how a pied peacock was eminently attractive to all his hen birds.

I cannot here enter on the necessary details; but if man can in a short time give beauty and an elegant carriage to his bantams, according to his standard of beauty, I can see no good reason to doubt that female birds, by selecting, during thousands of generations, the most melodious or beautiful males, according to their standard of beauty, might produce a marked effect.