WHAT EVOLUTION IS 117 



a rule, strikingly unlike. The females 

 are relatively inconspicuous and sim- 

 ple in their dress. The males, on the 

 other hand, are gaudy and ornamen- 

 tal in the extreme. In their colors 

 they are veritable microscopic pea- 

 cocks. In fact the comparison with 

 birds is quite appropriate, for just as 

 the male bird often has a conspicuous 

 plumage so is the male copepod com- 

 monly highly decked out, and one 

 would suppose for the same reason, 

 namely, to attract the females at the 

 breeding time. But the female cope- 

 pod, unlike the female bird, has eyes 

 that are quite incapable of taking in 

 all this beauty, and we meet again a 

 condition in which nature seems to 

 have gone so far in excess of what is 

 necessary that natural selection can- 

 not be offered as a means of explaining 

 the condition. This kind of excess, 

 which is an example of what has been 



