DARWINISM ATTACKED. n? 



sign of a transformation of the male colour. Shall one in this 

 case and others like it, asks Stolzmann, assume a change of 

 beauty-ideal on the part of the females ? Much' simpler and 

 much more reasonable, according to Stolzmann, is it to see in 

 the change of colour of the males of the earlier migrants the 

 results of the direct influence of the new environment; the 

 islands are distinctly milder and warmer than the continent. 

 Even if the females do choose among the males on a basis 

 of attractiveness, how are the characters of the more at- 

 tractive males to become especially fostered 

 attractive char- an< ^ accumulated by selection? Do such males 



acterstobe produce more offspring or more vigorous ones 

 fostered? , . , 



than the other males, which, though rejected 



by the first females, find their mates among the females not 

 already mated ? Are we to attribute to the more ornamental 

 males a particular vigour? If so, may not that very vigour 

 be the cause of the extra-production of colour or plumage 

 or wattles, etc.? 



Darwin admits, in order to explain the beginnings of 

 colour and ornament development, a certain degree of differ- 

 ence between the male and female in regard to 



Darwin's Big- 



nificant admis- their reaction to environmental influences. If 

 slon ' so, may not these admitted differences be really 



sufficient to account for even a pretty high degree of differ- 

 ence in development of secondary sexual characters ? 



The special display of colours, tufts, plumes, spreading 

 tails, and other secondary sexual characters by the males at 

 mating time is an observed fact; the "dances" 

 of cranes and storks, the serenades of the song- 

 birds, the evolutions of the male spiders are all 

 familiar phenomena in the mating season of these animals. 

 And they probably do exercise an exciting effect on the 

 females, and are probably actually displayed for this pur- 

 pose. But does this in any way prove, or even give basis 

 for a reasonable presumption for belief in a discriminating 



