374 SEXUAL SELECTION. [Part IL 



CHAPTER XI. 



INSECTS, continued. — order lepidopteea. 



Courtslup of Butterflies. — Battles. — Ticking Noise. — Colors common to 

 Both Sexes, or more brilliant in the Males. — Examples. — Not due to 

 the Direct Action of the Conditions of Life. — Colors adapted for Pro- 

 tection. — Colors of Moths. — Display. — Perceptive Powers of the Lepi- 

 doptera. — Variability. — Causes of the Diiference in Color between 

 the Males and Females. — Mimicry, Female Butterflies more brilliantly 

 colored than the Males. — Bright Colors of Caterpillars. — Summary 

 and Concluding Eemarks on the Secondary Sexual Characters of In- 

 sects. — Birds and Insects compared. 



In this great Order the most interesting point for us is 

 the difference in color between the sexes of the same spe- 

 cies, and between the distinct species of the same genus. 

 Nearly the whole of the following chapter will be devoted 

 to this subject ; but I will first make a few remarks on one 

 or two other points. Several males may often be seen 

 pursuing and crowding round the same female. Their 

 courtship appears to be a prolonged affair, for I have fre- 

 (juently watched one or more males pirouetting round a 

 female until I became tired, without seeing the end of the 

 courtship. Although butterflies are such weak and fragile 

 creatures, they are pugnacious, and an Emperor butterfly ' 

 has been captured with the tips of its wings broken from 



* Apatura Iris: 'The Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer,' 1859, p. 

 139. For the Borneau Butterflies, see C. Collingwood, ' Rambles of a 

 Naturalist,' 1868, p. 183. 



