196 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



in 1872, when in the Aru Islands, was once " lucky enough 

 to find a flock of about a dozen males fluttering round 

 and mobbing a single female. They were then hovering 

 slowly, quite close to the ground, and were easily caught." 

 But he was by no means convinced that any choice was 

 exerted. And he suggests " a series of experiments, in 

 which, in the case of highly-coloured and decorated Butter- 

 flies, the colours should be rubbed off the wings of a few 

 among a number of males, or painted over of a black or 

 brown colour. It might be tested whether the females 

 would always prefer the highly-coloured ones." Such 

 experiments are foredoomed to failure, for the removal 

 of the scales would remove the only source of communica- 

 tion between the sexes. 



Wallace, always a strenuous opponent of the Sexual 

 Selection theory, found in the behaviour of Butterflies 

 and Moths when mate-hunting a particularly powerful 

 countervailing weapon. He assumes that Darwin postu- 

 lated a conscious selection on the part of the female, 

 and with some show of reason, though it is probable 

 that Wallace was mistaken in this. " The weakness of 

 the evidence for conscious selection among these insects," 

 he remarks, " is so palpable, that Mr. Darwin is 

 obliged to supplement it by the singularly inconclusive 

 argument, * Unless the female prefer one male to another 

 the pairing must be left to mere chance, and this does not 

 appear probable.' But he has just said, * The males some- 

 times fight together in rivalry, and many may be seen 

 pursuing or crowding round the same female.' While 

 in the case of the Silk-moths — * the females appear not to 

 evince the least choice in regard to their partners.' Surely 

 the plain inference from all this is, that the males fight 

 and struggle for the almost passive female, and that 



