No. 3.] SKXrrAL SELECTION IN HI'IUKRS. 125 . 



reproductive processes. Here the demand upon the female is 

 obviously heavy. Even in bii'ds and insects, where the embyro 

 develops outside the bodj' of the parent, the numerous eggs must 

 be formed and stored with highly nutritious material, and there 

 seems no room for doubt that in tliese relations the female evinces 

 an amount of vital power that at least equals that ofthe male. 



How does she compare with him in pugnacity and activ- 

 ity? Of birds we cannot speak with much authority, but it 

 seems fair to say that in the construction of the nest, in feeding 

 'and rearing the young and in supplying her individual needs, 

 the female shows as much activity as the male, while she ex- 

 ceeds him in the anxious vigilance with which she watches over 

 her young and the vigor with which she defends them from 

 the enemies which constantly menace their safety. As to 

 spiders, we have no hesitation in saying that the females are 

 both more active and more pugnacious than the males. 



In "Darwinism" Mr. AVallace supports his position by the 

 following quotation — not of facts, but of opinion — from the 

 eminent arachnologist, Rev. 0. P. Cambridge : 



"T myself doubt tliat particular application of the Darwin- 

 ian theory which attributes mule peculiarities of form, structure, 

 color and ornament to female appetency or predilection. There 

 is, it seems to me, undoubtedly something in the male organ- 

 ism of a special and sexual nature which, of its own vital force, 

 develops the remarkable male peculiarities so commonly seen, 

 and of no imaginable use to that sex. In as far as these peculi- 

 arities show a great vital power, they point out to us the finest 

 and strongest individuals of the sex, and show us which of them 

 would most certainlj^ appropriate to themselves the best and 

 greatest number of females, and leave behind them the strong- 

 est and greatest number of progeny. And here would come 

 in, as it appears to me, the proper application of Darwin's theory 

 of natural selection, for the possessors of greatest vital power 

 being those most frequently produced and reproduced, the ex- 

 ternal signs of it would go on developing in an ever-increasing 

 exaggeration, only to be checked where it became really detri- 

 mental in soine respect or other to the individual." 



