3-14 



SEXUAL SELECTION. 



Part II. 



with cushions of hair, exactly like those on the tarsi of 

 the Carabidse, " and obviously for the same end." In 

 male dragon-flies, "the appendages at the tip of the tail 

 " are modified in an almost infinite variety of curious 



" patterns to enable them to embrace 

 < ( the neck of the female." Lastly in 

 the males of many insects, the legs 

 are furnished with peculiar spines, 

 knobs or spurs ; or the whole leg is 

 bowed or thickened, but this is by 

 no means invariably a sexual cha- 

 racter ; or one pair, or all three 

 pairs are elongated, sometimes to 

 an extravagant length. 8 



In all the orders, the sexes of 

 many species present differences, of 

 which the meaning is not under- 

 stood. One curious case is that of 

 a beetle (fig. 9), the male of which 

 has the left mandible much en- 

 larged ; so that the mouth is greatly 

 distorted. In another Carabidous 

 beetle, the Eurygnathus, 9 we have 

 the unique case, as far as known to 

 Mr. Wollaston, of the head of the 

 female beino; much broader and 

 larger, though in a variable degree, 

 than that of the male. Any number 



Fig. 9. Taphrodei-es distortus f j cageg 1( J be „i ven< TlieV 



(much enlarged). Upper > n * 



figure, male; lower figure, abound in the Lepidoptera : one 



of the most extraordinary is that 

 certain male butterflies have their fore-legs more or 



s Kirby and Spence, ' Introduct.' &c, vol. iii. p. 332-336. 

 9 'Insecta Maclerensia,' 1854, p. 20. 



