But now, whilst you are still a little child, I can give you another explanation of why the males and females of some birds are as beautiful as each other, whilst the males of some other ones are ever so much the most beautiful. This other explanation will do in case the one about the cock Birds of Paradise flying faster than the hens is not the right one, for, of course, we cannot be quite sure that they flew faster. I did say I was sure, but that was just a little mistake of mine. One is not _really_ sure of a thing until one knows it, and I don't quite _know_ that it happened like that, however much I may think it did. Besides, this new explanation that I am going to give you will do for all other birds as well as for the Birds of Paradise, and, of course, the more anything explains the better explanation it is. So now I will give it you, and, if you like it better than the other, you can take it instead, and if you only like it as well, then you will have two nice explanations instead of only one. Here it is. In the old days, a long, long time ago, the males and females of all the birds were as beautiful as each other, and they were all in love with each other. Only the question was which of them were the most in love, and, as to that, they often had disputes. "We love you better than you love us," said the male birds to the females; "you love us only for our beauty, you do not love us for ourselves, as we love you." "If you think so," said the female birds (the beautiful hens), "give us your beauty, and you shall find that we love you just as well, without it." But the male birds, who were quite content, _really_, to be loved for their beauty, and who did not wish to part with it, made haste to change the conversation. "But _you_ love _us_ for _our_ beauty," said the hen birds (for they soon got round again to the same subject); "it is not for ourselves that you love us, but only because we are beautiful." "If that is your idea," said the male birds, "bestow your beauty upon us, and you shall soon be undeceived." Then the female birds, who only wished to be loved for themselves and not for what they looked like, gave all their beauty to their beautiful husbands, and remained without any. So now, of course, the male birds were twice as beautiful as they had been before, whilst the poor hens were not beautiful at all, and would even have been quite ugly if they had not been birds, for a bird _cannot_ be ugly. And now it was found that, whilst some of the male birds had loved their wives so much that they went on loving them still, in spite of the change in their appearance, others (and I am afraid they were the greater number) left off loving them, as soon as they had left off being beautiful, and were not able to love them again, although they tried ever so hard. You see, they had only loved them for their beauty, not for themselves, so as soon as there was no more beauty, there was no more love. So those male