57 



me, do you, if the beautiful varieties of birds' eggs, no two of 

 them alike, came of the admiration of one egg for another ? 

 Save yourself the trouble. 



I believe, " I see no good reason to doubt, that female birds 

 by selecting, during thousands of generations, the most melo- 

 dious or beautiful males, according to their standard of beauty, 

 might produce a marked effect." You say, how much obliged to 

 the hen birds we ought to be for the production of all the beau- 

 tifully-plumed forms of birds we see, foreign and British, and for 

 all their variety of songs. Yes, I think so too. You are right 

 for once. 



I believe in this fancy of mine, but if you ask me how the first 

 bird came to the appreciation of beauty in colour, when I have 

 said that Natural Selection has nothing to do with beauty, I can't 

 say. You call it a " craze." You may, if you like. 



I believe the same of butterflies, with all their gay colours. 

 They all come of the admiration of the females for the males 

 very likely when they met at some " Butterflies' ball and 

 Grasshoppers' feast." Yes, I think so. You may ask me how 

 it is that some females are so much handsomer than the males, 

 and some so plain, all black or all white, and so on. You may 

 ask me how I answer for the splendid colours of numberless 

 caterpillars, and then of chrysalides, and then eggs, and whether 

 their admiration for one another brought it about ? You may ask 

 me, if you like. I sha'nt tell you. 



I believe that changes in the structure of animals, which imply 

 and involve an intuitive knowledge of the profoundest secrets of 

 Physiology, are effected in all creatures, while yet, as in the case 

 of a toad or an oyster there is no intellect at all exercised in the 

 transmutation, nor any definite plan or object in view as to what 

 is to be attained to. Yes ; thus from utter imbecility and the 

 most profound ignorance, the highest wisdom and the greatest 

 perfection of strength are evolved by evolution. Only give 

 helplessness, ignorance, and nothingness time enough, and they 

 will conjure you up anything I please. " I am monarch of all I 

 survey," is the motto of my theory, like Crusoe, in his history of 

 old. Wisdom and power have had nothing to do with the 



