Some birds evince æsthetic taste, notably in the building of their nests, which they ornament and decorate in a manner very pleasing to the eye.
The snakeskin bird gets its name from its habit of using the cast-off skins of snakes for decorative purposes. Not long ago I found a nest in a small wood, not far from the town in which I live, which was beautifully ornamented with the exuviated skin of a black snake (_Bascanion constrictor_). This skin must have been at least five feet in length, and the little artists had woven it into the walls of their nest in such a manner that its translucent, glittering scales contrasted very beautifully with the darker materials of their home.
Humming-birds use bits of lichen and moss to decorate their tiny nests. These materials serve a twofold purpose: they not only render the nest beautiful, but they also serve to protect it by making it resemble the limb on which it is placed. It takes a very acute and discriminating eye, indeed, to locate a humming-bird's nest.
Probably of all the lower animals, the male satin or bower bird of New South Wales has the decorative feeling the most developed. This bird builds a pleasure resort, a summer-house, or, rather, dance hall, which he ornaments profusely with every glittering, shining, striking object that he can carry to his bower in the depths of the forest. This bower is built of twigs, and, when completed, is an oblong, sugar-loaf-like structure, open at both ends. The bird decorates his dancing hall (for he comes here to perform love-dances during the courting season) with bright-colored rags, shells, pebbles, bones, etc.
I once saw a pair of bower birds in captivity (they were owned by Mr. George Hahn of St. Louis), which constructed the dance hall from materials furnished by their owner.
The love of personal cleanliness is, probably, the root and beginning of much that is æsthetic among the lower animals.
When quite a small lad, one of the first lessons set down in my copy-book, after I had graduated in "pot-hooks and hangers," was the trite old saw, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." My Yankee governess, a tall, angular spinster, from Maine, made the meaning of this copy clear to my infant mind, pointing her remarks by calling attention to the Kentucky real estate which had found a resting-place beneath my finger-nails, and which seemed to decorate them with perpetual badges of mourning. I have never forgotten that lesson and firmly believe in its truth.