Look around the world and what do you see? You see that the ornaments we are discussing are nothing if not arbitrary. Peacocks have eyes in their train; sage grouse have inflatable air sacs and pointed tails; nightingales have melodies of great variety and no particular pattern; birds of paradise grow bizarre feathers like pennants; bower birds collect blue objects. It is a cacophony of caprice and color. Surely if sexually selected ornaments told a tale of their owner’s vigor, they would not be so utterly random.
