SEXUAL SELECTION 103 



ually in animals before it could attain its present stage 

 of development in man. 



This is certainly true, but we run the risk of erring 

 greatly when we attribute to animals, especially to 

 the lower animals, aesthetic feelings similar to ours. 

 In some species (in spiders for example) the eye is 

 too imperfect to perceive essential differences. 



"In numerous cases the so-called attractive char- 

 acters of the males," such as the dances of certain in- 

 sects attributed to sexual selection, "have been found, 

 in actual life, to be of such a character that they can- 

 not be noted by the female. . . . The dancing 

 swarms of many kinds of insects are found to be com- 

 posed of males alone with no females near enough to 

 see. . . . Of many male katydids singing in the 

 shrubbery, will not for any female that particular song- 

 be the loudest and the most convincing, that proceeds 

 from the nearest male, not the most expert or the 

 strongest stridulator?" 5 



Ornamental characters are not always the exclusive 

 privilege of one sex; they are so in the majority of 

 cases, but not in every case, and the theory of sexual 

 selection ig_a t pains to explain the cases__in_ which 

 both sexes possess those charactersjtoihe same extent 

 or the cases in which the female i s more fav oured than 

 the male. The strongest argument against the the- 

 ory of sexual selection based upon the ornamental 



5 V. L. Kellogg. Darwinism To-day, p. 115. 



