188 DIVERSITY OF THE SEXES 



group to which the species belongs ;* occasionally, 

 however, this feminine peculiarity has been trans- 

 mitted to the male, and by this means a new type 

 of coloration established in the group. The male 

 of butterflies is usually colored the more vividly 

 and conspicuously, but this is not universal, as 

 the case of the coppers, just quoted, may show. 

 But I have seen no instance, besides that of the 

 Spring Azure, where the male alone departs from 

 the general type of coloring peculiar to the group. 

 This is precisely the opposite conclusion to that 

 which Darwin reached in his discussion of sexual 

 selection in butterflies. He gives several ex- 

 amples, on the authority of Bates, which cer- 

 tainly favor his conclusion, but may at the same 

 time be explained from the opposite point of 

 view. He gives other examples from the Euro- 

 pean blues, which not only do not support, but 

 even oppose his general statement that " the 

 male, as a general rule, departs most from the 

 usual type of coloring of the group to which the 

 species belong." 



Take the case of Diana, than which we could 

 hardly find a stronger, since the group to which 

 it belongs is remarkably uniform, exhibiting in 



* A single exception to this rule among our butterflies is known 

 to me, in the Spring Azure [see Figs. 148, 149], already referred 

 to, in which it is the male and not the female which is sometimes 

 brown instead of blue, the normal color of the group. 



