76 MAN [Chap. VIII 



Letter 442 To A. R. Wallace. 



Dr. Clifford Allbutt's view probably had reference to the fact that 

 the sperm-cell goes, or is carried, to the germ-cell, never vice versa. 

 In this letter Darwin gives the reason for the " law " referred to. Mr. 

 A. R. Wallace has been good enough to give us the following note : — 

 "It was at this time that my paper on 'Protective Resemblance'" first 

 appeared in the Westminster Review, in which I adduced the greater, 

 or, rather, the more continuous, importance of the female (in the lower 

 animals) for the race, and my 'Theory of Birds' Nests' {Journal of 

 Travel and Natural History, No. 2) in which I applied this to the usually 

 dull colours of female butterflies and birds. It is to these articles as 

 well as to my letters that Darwin chiefly refers." — Note by Mr. Wallace, 

 May 27th, 1902. 



Down, April 30th [1868]. 



Your letter, like so many previous ones, has interested 

 me much. Dr. Allbutt's view occurred to me some 

 time ago, and I have written a short discussion on it. It 

 is, I think, a remarkable law, to which I have found no 

 exception. The foundation lies in the fact that in many- 

 cases the eggs or seeds require nourishment and protection 

 by the mother-form for some time after impregnation. 

 Hence the spermatozoa and antherozoids travel in the lower 

 aquatic animals and plants to the female, and pollen is borne 

 to the female organ. As organisms rise in the scale it seems 

 natural that the male should carry the spermatozoa to the 

 female in his own body. As the male is the searcher, he 

 has required and gained more eager passions than the 

 female ; and, very differently from you, I look at this as 

 one great difficulty in believing that the males select the 

 more attractive females ; as far as I can discover, they are 

 always ready to seize on any female, and sometimes on 

 many females. Nothing would please me more than to 

 find evidence of males selecting the more attractive females. 

 I have for months been trying to persuade myself of this. 

 There is the case of man in favour of this belief, and I know 

 in hybrid unions of males preferring particular females, but, 

 alas, not guided by colour. Perhaps I may get more 

 evidence as I wade through my twenty years' mass of notes. 



I am not shaken about the female protected butterflies. 

 I will grant (only for argument) that the life of the male is 

 of very little value, — I will grant that the males do not vary, 



