460 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



parents has had little or no influence on the differences in 

 color between the sexes. It is further manifest, in all the 

 cases in which the males take exclusive charge of the nests 

 and young, that the destruction of the brighter-colored 

 males would be far more influential on the character of the 

 race than the destruction of the brighter-colored females; 

 for the death of the male during the period of incubation 

 or nursing would entail the death of the young, so that they 

 could not inherit his peculiarities; yet, in many of these 

 very cases, the males are more conspicuously colored thau 

 the females. 



In most of the Lophobranchii (Pipe-fish, Hippocampi, 

 etc.) the males have either marsupial sacs or hemispherical 

 depressions on the abdomen, in which the ova laid by the 

 female are hatched. The males also show great attachment 

 to their young." The sexes do not commonly differ much 

 in color ; but Dr. Gunther believes that the male Hippocampi 

 are rather brighter than the females. The genus Solenos- 

 toma, however, offers a curious exceptional case," for the 

 female is much mtjire vividly colored and spotted than 

 the male, and she alone has a marsupial sac and hatches 

 the eggs; so that the female of Solenostoma differs from 

 all the other Lophobranchii in this latter respect, and 

 from almost all other fishes, in being more brightly colored 

 than the male. It is improbable that this remarkable double 

 inversion of character in th6 female should be an accidental 

 coincidence. As the males of several fishes, which take 

 exclusive charge of the eggs and young, are more brightly 

 colored than the females, and as here the female Solenos- 

 toma takes the same charge and is brighter than the male, 

 it might be argued that the conspicuous colors of that sex, 

 which is the more important of the two for the welfare of 

 the^offspring, must be in some manner protective. But 



3» Tarrell, "Hist, of British Fishes," vol. ii., 1836, pp. 329, 338. 



■" Dr. Gfinther, since publishing an account of this species in "The Fishes 

 of Zanzibar," by C!ol. Playfair, 1866, p. \2,1 has re-examined the specimens, 

 and has given me the above information. 



