The Wallace-Darwin Correspondence 



culty in believing that the males select the more attrac- 

 tive females ; as far as I can discover they are always ready 

 to seize on any female, and sometimes on many females. 

 Nothing would please me more than to find evidence of 

 males selecting the more attractive females [? m pigeons^'] : 

 I have for months been trying to persuade myself of this. 

 There is the case of man in favour of this belief, and I 

 know in hybrid [lizards'^'] unions of males preferring par- 

 ticular females, but alas ! not guided by colour. Perhaps I 

 may get more evidence as I wade through my twenty years' 

 mass of notes. 



I am not shaken about the female protected butterflies : 

 I will grant (only for argument) that the life of the male 

 is of very little value; I will grant that the males do not 

 vary; yet why has not the protective beauty of the female 

 been transferred by inheritance to the male ? The beauty 

 would be a gain to the male, as far as we can see, as a pro- 

 tection; and I cannot believe that it would be repulsive to 

 the female as she became beautiful. But we shall never 

 convince each other. I sometimes marvel how truth pro- 

 gresses, so difficult is it for one man to convince another 

 unless his mind is vacant. Nevertheless, I myself to a 

 certain extent contradict my own remark; for I believe 

 far more in the importance of protection than I did before 

 reading your articles. 



I do not think you lay nearly stress enough in your 

 articles on what you admit in your letter, viz. ^' there 

 seems to be some production of vividness ... of colour in 

 the male independent of protection." This I am making 

 a chief point ; and have come to your conclusion so far that 

 I believe that intense colouring in the female sex is often 

 checked by being dangerous. 



That is an excellent remark of yours about no known 



* ** In pigeons " and " lizards " inserted by A. R. W. 

 215 



