OK, if wild horses are worth more as meat on the table than they are as a living tableau, what do you think of birds?

Avian race anything but birdbrains, scientists find
Cognitive behavior rivals even chimps, recent studies show
David Perlman, SF Chronicle Science Editor
Monday, February 7, 2005

Parrots can chat with humans, pigeons can tell a Picasso painting from a Monet and, in the Galapagos islands, Darwin's finches can spear insects with tools they make from cactus spines -- but, contrary to what scientists have long believed, none of them is acting merely on blind instinct or unconscious responses to training.

What those birds are doing, instead, is being smart -- displaying "complex cognitive behavior" as modern brain researchers call it. The new understanding comes from a recent series of experiments and comparative studies of the brain structures of birds, humans and other mammals.
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The nasty word "birdbrain," in the group's thinking, is an arrogant, human-coined insult to an avian race that evolved more than 50 million years after mammals first crept, crawled and stood on the world's stage -- and to the bird brains, which have apparently been evolving even more rapidly than mammalian brains ever since.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/07/MNGM5B71N01.DTL&type=science

M-W: Main Entry: tab·leau
Pronunciation: 'ta-"blO, ta-'blO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural tab·leaux /-"blOz, -'blOz/; also tableaus
Etymology: French, from Middle French tablel, diminutive of table, from Old French
1 : a graphic description or representation : PICTURE <winsome tableaux of old-fashioned literary days -- J. D. Hart>
2 : a striking or artistic grouping
3 [short for tableau vivant (from F, literally, living picture)] : a depiction of a scene usually presented on a stage by silent and motionless costumed participants