Address of A. R. Wallace at the Glasgow Meeting. 857. 
2. On some Relations of Living Things to their Environment. 
Of all the external characters of animals, the most beautiful, 
the most varied, and the most generally attractive, are the bril- 
liant colors and strange yet often elegant markings with which 
8omany of them are adorned. Yet, of all characters, this is 
the most difficult to bring under the laws of utility or of phyaipel 
connection. Mr. Darwin—as you are well aware—has sho 
how wide is the influence of sex on the intensity of coloration ; 
and he has been led to the conclusion that active or voluntary 
- Sexual selection is one of the chief causes, if not the chief cause, 
one as to which I myself differ from him. I have argued, 
and still believe, that the need of protection is a far more effi- 
seems to be an influence depending strictly on locality, whose 
— we cannot yet understand, but whose effects are every- 
Where to be seen when carefully searched for. 
; are therefore led to seek some other cause for the varied 
ep that prevail among insects; and as this variety 1s most 
an any other—it offers the best means of studying the sub- 
some Che variety of color and marking among these insects . 
thing marvellous. There are probably about ten thousan 
