298 THE PEINCIPLES OF Part II. 



to their enemies, or of structures, such as great horns, 

 which would have expended much vital force in 

 their development. Variations of this kind occurring 

 in the young males will almost certainly have been 

 eliminated through natural selection. With the adult 

 and experienced males, on the other hand, the advan- 

 tage derived from the acquisition of such characters, 

 in their rivalry with other males, will often have 

 more than counterbalanced exposure to some degree 

 of clanger. 



As variations analogous to those wdrich give to the 

 male a superiority over other males in fighting, or in 

 finding, securing, or charming the opposite sex, would, 

 if they happened to arise in the female, be of no service 

 to her, they will not have been preserved through 

 sexual selection in this sex. We have good evidence 

 that with domesticated animals variations of all kinds 

 are soon lost through intercrossing and accidental 

 deaths, if not carefully selected. Consequently, varia- 

 tions of the above kind, if they chanced to arise in 

 the female, would be extremely liable to be lost ; 

 and the females would be left unmodified, as far as 

 these characters are concerned, excepting in so far 

 as they were received through transference from the 

 males. No doubt, if the females varied and trans- 

 mitted their newly acquired characters to their off- 

 spring of both sexes, the characters which were ad- 

 vantageous to the males would be preserved through 

 sexual selection, although they were of no use to 

 the females themselves. In this case, both sexes would 

 be modified in the same manner. But I shall here- 

 after have to recur to these more intricate contin- 

 gencies. 



Variations occurring late in life, and transmitted to 

 one sex alone, have incessantly been taken advantage 



