124 WORK ON 'MAN.' [1870. 



latent tendency would be shown by their producing the 

 red feathers when old, or diseased in their ovaria. But 

 I have no difficulty in making the whole head red if the 

 few red feathers in the male from the first tended to be 

 sexually transmitted. I am quite willing to admit that the 

 female may have been modified, either at the same time 

 or subsequently, for protection by the accumulation of varia- 

 tions limited in their transmission to the female sex. I owe to 

 your writings the consideration of this latter point. But I 

 cannot yet persuade myself that females alone have often 

 been modified for protection. Should you grudge the trouble 

 briefly to tell me, whether you believe that the plainer head 

 and less bright colours of 9 chaffinch,* the less red on the head 

 and less clean colours of $ goldfinch, the much less red on 

 the breast of °. bullfinch, the paler crest of golden-crested 

 wren, &c, have been acquired by them for protection. I 

 cannot think so, any more than I can that the considerable 

 differences between 9 and $ house sparrow, or much greater 

 brightness of $ Parus coeruleus (both of which build under 

 cover) than of 9 Parus, are related to protection. I even 

 misdoubt much whether the less blackness of 9 blackbird is 

 for protection. 



Again, can you give me reasons for believing that the 

 moderate differences between the female pheasant, the female 

 Gallus bankiva, the female of black grouse, the pea-hen, the 

 female partridge, have all special references to protection under 

 slightly different conditions ? I, of course, admit that they are 

 all protected by dull colours, derived, as I think, from some 

 dull-ground progenitor ; and I account partly for their 

 difference by partial transference of colour from the male, 

 and by other means too long to specify ; but I earnestly wish 

 to see reason to believe that each is specially adapted for 

 concealment to its environment. 



I grieve to differ from you, and it actually terrifies me and 



* The symbols $ , ? , stand for male and female. 



