BIRDS— SUMMARY. 457 



from this through natural selection, resulting from the incon- 

 venience or danger thus caused. 



I have endeavored in this chapter to show that the arguments 

 are not trustworthy in favor of the view that weapons, bright 

 colors, and various ornaments, are now confined to the males 

 owing to the conversion, hy natural selection, of the equal trans- 

 mission of characters to both sexes, into transmission to the male 

 sex alone. It is also doubtful whether the colors of many female 

 birds are due to the preservation, for the sake of protection of 

 variations which were from the first limited in their transmission 

 to the female sex. But it will be convenient to defer any further 

 discussion on this subject until I treat, in the following chapter, of 

 the differences in plumage between the young and old. 



