350 SEXUAL SELECTION. [Part IL 



insects in little bamboo cages and match them like game- 

 cocks." With respect to color, some exotic locusts are 

 beautifully ornamented ; the posterior wings being marked 

 with red, blue, and black ; but, as throughout the Order 

 the two sexes rarely differ much in color, it is doubtful 

 whether they owe these bright tints to sexual selection. 

 Conspicuous colors may be of use to these insects as a 

 protection, on the principle to be explained in the next 

 chapter, by giving notice to their enemies that they are 

 unpalatable. Thus it has been observed " that an Indian 

 brightly-colored locust was invariably rejected when of- 

 fered to birds and lizards. Some cases, however, of sex- 

 ual differences in color in this Order are known. The 

 male of an American ci'icket" is described as being as 

 white as ivory, while the female varies from almost white 

 to greenish yellow or dusky. Mr. Walsh informs me 

 that the adult male of Spectrum femoratum (one of 

 the Phasmida?) "is of a shining brownish-yellow color; 

 the adult female being of a dull, opaque, cinereous brown; 

 the young of both sexes being gi-een." Lastly, I may 

 mention that the male of one curious kind of cricket " is 

 furnished with "a long membranous appendage, which 

 falls over the face like a veil ; " but whether this serves 

 as an ornament is not known. 



Order, Neuroptera. — Little need here be said, except 

 in regard to color. In the Ephemeridtc the sexes often 

 differ slightly in their obscure tints ; *' but it is not prob- 



*' Westwood, ' Modern Class, of Insects,' vol. i. p. 427 ; for crickets, 

 p. 445. 



** Mr. Ch. Home, in 'Proc. Ent. Soc' May 3, 1869, p. xii. 



^' The Oecanlhus nivalis. Harris, ' Insects of Now England,' 1842, 

 p. 124. 



*" Platyblemnus : Westwood, ' Modern Class.' vol. i. p. 447. 



*' B. D. Walsh, the Pscudo-neuroptera of Illinois, in ' Proc. Ent. Soc 

 of Philadelphia,' 1862, p. 361. 



