82 CONTROLLED NATURAL SELECTION 
the theory of sexual selection explains or 
correlates, else it could never have been con- 
ceived. Nevertheless much has been written 
against sexual selection, especially in Germany 
and America, and a general demand made for 
another explanation.’ There are other theories. 
Wallace explains the dull dresses of female 
birds and insects by supposing that the young- 
producing females require better protection 
than the males. But one would think that if 
dull plumes are an advantage to the female 
they would also be of use to the male, and 
that therefore he would don them too. This 
theory of Wallace apparently comes very near 
to the one under description, but in reality it 
is almost the converse. The new theory states 
that the male becomes brilliant in colour in 
order that he may be more likely to be 
destroyed : and thus the dull-coloured female 
gain protection. In Wallace’s theory the 
female becomes altered for her sake, in this 
theory the male for the female’s sake. Wallace 
1 The author’s theory is not, strictly speaking, antagonistic to 
Sexual Selection, but only in so far that such selection cannot 
be for the purpose of gratifying the female’s sense of beauty. 
The new theory is quite able to embrace female selection 
provided they instinctively select males which will be more 
attractive to enemies than males in general ; for instance, con- 
spicuously coloured males as against beautiful males, 
