iU SEXUAL SELECTION: BIRDS. [Part II. 



I have endeavored in this chapter to show that the 

 arguments are not trustworthy in favor of the view that 

 weapons, bright colors, and various ornaments, are now 

 confined to the males owing to the conversion, by means 

 of natural selection, of a tendency to the equal transmis- 

 sion of characters to both sexes into transmission to the 

 male sex alone. It is also doubtful whether the colors of 

 many female birds are due to the preservation, for the sake 

 of protection, of variations which were from the first limit- 

 ed in their transmission to the female sex. But it will be 

 convenient to defer any further discussion on this subject 

 until I treat, in the following chapter, on the differences in 

 plumage between the young and old. 



