DARWINISM ATTACKED. 115 



of ornament and other attracting and exciting organs is to 

 be explained by the selection and gradual cumulation through 

 generations of slight fortuitously appearing fluctuating 

 variations in the males. 



There are actually very few recorded cases where the 



observer believes that he has noted an actual choice by a 



-n , female. Darwin records eight cases among 



Few observed 



cases of choice birds. Since Darwin not more than half a 

 dozen other cases, all doubtful, have been 

 recorded. Also a few instances, all more illustrative of 

 sexual excitation of females resulting from the perception 

 of odour or actions, than any degree of choice by females, 

 have been listed. 



In numerous cases the so-called attractive characters of 

 the males, described usually from preserved (museum) 



specimens, have been found, in actual life, to- 

 Some so-called , , 

 attractive char- e * sucn a character that they cannot be noted 



acters not visible by the female. For example, the brilliant 



in nature. ... ... 



colours and the curious horns of the males 

 of the dung beetles are, in life, always so obscured by dirt 

 and filth that there can be no question of display to the 

 female eyes about them. The dancing swarms of many 

 kinds of insects are found to be composed of males alone- 

 with no females near enough to see ; it is no case of an: 

 excitatory flitting and whirling of many males before the 

 eyes of the impressionable females. Of many male katy- 

 dids singing in the shrubbery will not for any female that 

 particular song be the loudest and the most convincing that 

 proceeds from the nearest male, not the most expert or the 

 strongest stridulator? Similarly with the flitting male fire- 

 flies ; will not the strongest gleam be, for any female, that 

 from the male which happens to fly nearest her, and not 

 from the distant male with ever so much better, stronger 

 light ? 



Stolzmann finds it difficult to understand, when nearly 



