No one will deny that structures, such as, for instance, the gardens of the atlas birds, which have been depicted by Beccari, are most wonderful specimens of animal industry.[280] But it is undoubtedly misleading to speak of them as artistic. As far as can be judged from the descriptions—which are seldom complete—the arrangement of the objects seems to be quite accidental. Darwin has indeed collected some most eulogistic accounts of the decorative taste of the Australian bower bird. But he has also, candidly enough, illustrated them with a picture, on which an irregular heap of shells and bones is to be seen in front of the bower. And the description he borrows from Mr. Strange is yet more significant. To judge from this account, which is further corroborated by the statement of Captain Stokes, the chief interest of the birds seems to be not the arranging of their treasures, but the playing with them. It has been noticed that the cock of the great bower bird amuses himself by flying to and fro in the bower carrying a shell in his bill, which he picks up on one side and carries to the other.[281] On an anthropomorphic interpretation such a behaviour would perhaps indicate a desire of trying some new decorative effect. But it seems more natural to assume that brilliant objects, even after they have been stored up in the nest, still exercise their irresistible attraction, and thereby tempt the birds to repeated trifling with them. If the supposed redecorations of the gardens be accounted for in this manner, then there is no reason for considering the collecting impulse in the Australian birds as anything more than a higher development of the same tendency which shows itself in our common magpies and jackdaws.