_Mental Qualities of Birds, and their taste for the beautiful._—Before we discuss any further the question whether the females select the more attractive males or accept the first whom they may encounter, it will be advisable briefly to consider the mental powers of birds. Their reason is generally, and perhaps justly, ranked as low; yet some facts could be given[156] leading to an opposite conclusion. Low powers of reasoning, however, are compatible, as we see with mankind, with strong affections, acute perception, and a taste for the beautiful; and it is with these latter qualities that we are here concerned. It has often been said that parrots become so deeply attached to each other that when one dies the other for a long time pines; but Mr. Jenner Weir thinks that with most birds the strength of their affection has been much exaggerated. Nevertheless when one of a pair in a state of nature has been shot, the survivor has been heard for days afterwards uttering a plaintive call; and Mr. St. John gives[157] various facts proving the attachment of mated birds. Starlings, however, as we have seen, may be consoled thrice in the same day for the loss of their mates. In the Zoological Gardens parrots have clearly recognised their former masters after an interval of some months. Pigeons have such excellent local memories that they have been known to return to their former homes after an interval of nine months, yet, as I hear from Mr. Harrison Weir, if a pair which would naturally remain mated for life be separated for a few weeks during the winter and matched with other birds, the two, when brought together again, rarely, if ever, recognise each other. Birds sometimes exhibit benevolent feelings; they will feed the deserted young even of distinct species, but this perhaps ought to be considered as a mistaken instinct. They will also feed, as shewn in an earlier part of this work, adult birds of their own species which have become blind. Mr. Buxton gives a curious account of a parrot which took care of a frost-bitten and crippled bird of a distinct species, cleansed her feathers and defended her from the attacks of the other parrots which roamed freely about his garden. It is a still more curious fact that these birds apparently evince some sympathy for the pleasures of their fellows. When a pair of cockatoos made a nest in an acacia tree, “it was ridiculous to see the extravagant interest taken in the matter by the others of the same species.” These parrots, also, evinced unbounded curiosity, and clearly had “the idea of property and possession.”[158]