CiiAP. XVI. THE YOJNG LIKE THE ADULT FEMALES. 199 



that subsequently, the females from the danger in- 

 curred during incubation, and the young from being 

 inexperienced, had been rendered dull as a protection. 

 But this view is not supported by any evidence, and is 

 not probable ; for we thus in imagination expose during 

 past times the females and the young to danger, from 

 which it has subsequently been necessary to shield their 

 modified descendants. We liave, also, to reduce, through 

 a gradual process of selection, the I'emales and the young 

 to almost exactly the same tints and markings, and to 

 transmit them to the corresponding sex and period of 

 life. It is also a somewhat strange fact, on the suppo- 

 sition that the females and the young have partaken 

 during each stage of the process of modification of a 

 tendency to be as brightly coloured as the males, that the 

 females have never been rendered dull-coloured without 

 the young participating in the same change ; for there 

 are no instances, as far as I can discover, of species with the 

 females dull-coloured and the young bright-coloured. A 

 partial exception, however, is offered by the young of cer- 

 tain woodpeckers, for they have " the whole upper part 

 " of the head tinged with red," which afterwards either 

 decreases into a mere circular red line in the adults of 

 both sexes, or quite disappears in the adult females.-^^ 



Finally, with respect to our present class of cases, 

 the most probable view appears to be that successive 

 variations in brightness or in other ornamental charac- 

 ters, occurring in the males at a rather late jjeriod of 

 life have alone been preserved ; and that niQst or all 

 of these variations owing to the late period of life at 

 which they appeared, have been from the first trans- 

 mitted only to the adult male offspring. Any varia- 



^2 Audubon^ ' Ornith. Biography,' vol. i. p. 193. Maogillivray, 'Hist. 

 Brit. Birds,' vol. iii. p. 85. See also the case before given of Indopkus 

 carlotta. 



