The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

females habitually or occasionally prefer the more beautiful males, and that these have thus acquired their beauty. That the females in most or all the Orders would have the power of rejecting any particular male, is probable from the many singular contrivances possessed by the males, such as great jaws, adhesive cushions, spines, elongated legs, etc., for seizing the female; for these contrivances show that there is some difficulty in the act, so that her concurrence would seem necessary. Judging from what we know of the perceptive powers and affections of various insects, there is no antecedent improbability in sexual selection having come largely into play; but we have as yet no direct evidence on this head, and some facts are opposed to the belief. Nevertheless, when we see many males pursuing the same female, we can hardly believe that the pairing is left to blind chance—that the female exerts no choice, and is not influenced by the gorgeous colours or other ornaments with which the male is decorated. If we admit that the females of the Homoptera and Orthoptera appreciate the musical tones of their male partners, and that the various instruments have been perfected through sexual selection, there is little improbability in the females of other insects appreciating beauty in form or colour, and consequently in such characters having been thus gained by the males. But from the circumstance of colour being so variable, and from its having been so often modified for the sake of protection, it is difficult to decide in how large a proportion of cases sexual selection has played a part. This is more especially difficult in those Orders, such as Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, and Coleoptera, in which the two sexes rarely differ much in colour; for we are then left to mere analogy. With the Coleoptera, however, as before remarked, it is in the great Lamellicorn group, placed by some authors at the head of the Order, and in which we sometimes see a mutual attachment between the sexes, that we find the males of some species possessing weapons for sexual strife, others furnished with wonderful horns, many with stridulating organs, and others ornamented with splendid metallic tints. Hence it seems probable that all these characters have been gained through the same means, namely sexual selection. With butterflies we have the best evidence, as the males sometimes take pains to display their beautiful colours; and we cannot believe that they would act thus, unless the display was of use to them in their courtship. When we treat of Birds, we shall see that they present in their secondary sexual characters the closest analogy with insects. Thus, many male birds are highly pugnacious, and some are furnished with special weapons for fighting with their rivals. They possess organs which are used during the breeding-season for producing vocal and instrumental music. They are frequently ornamented with combs, horns, wattles and plumes of the most diversified kinds, and are decorated with beautiful colours, all evidently for the sake of display. We shall find that, as with insects, both sexes in certain groups are equally beautiful, and are equally provided with ornaments which are usually confined to the male sex. In other groups both sexes are equally plain-coloured and unornamented. Lastly, in some few anomalous cases, the females are more beautiful than the males. We shall often find, in the same group of birds, every gradation from no difference between the sexes, to an extreme difference. We shall see that female birds, like female insects, often possess more or less plain traces or rudiments of characters which properly belong to the males and are of use only to them. The analogy, indeed, in all these respects between birds and insects is curiously close. Whatever explanation applies to the one class probably applies to the other; and this explanation, as we shall hereafter attempt to shew in further detail, is sexual selection.