672 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



CHAPTER XV 



BIBDS — eontinuei 



Bisousaion b3 to why the males alone of some species, and bodi eeses of 

 others, are brightly colored — On sexually limited inheritance, as j,^ 

 plied to various structures and to brightly colored plumage— Kidiflca- 

 tion in relation to color — Loss of nuptial plumage during the winter 



WE HAVE in this chapter to consider why the 

 females of many birds have not acquired the 

 same ornaments as the male; and why, on the 

 other hand, both sexes of many other birds are equally, 

 or almost equally, ornamented? In the following chapte? 

 we shall consider the few cases in which the female is more 

 conspicuously colored than the male. 



In my "Origin of Species" ' I briefly suggested that 

 the long tail of the peacock would be inconvenient, and 

 the conspicuous black color of the male capercailzie dan- 

 gerous, to the female during the period of incubation ; and 

 consequently that the transmission of these characters from 

 the male to the female offspring had been checked through 

 natural selection. I still think that this may have occurred 

 in some few instances; but, after mature reflection on all 

 the facts which I have been able to collect, I am now in- 

 clined to believe that when the sexes differ, the successive 

 variations have generally been from the first limited in their 

 transmission to the same sex in which they first arose. 

 Since my remarks appeared, the subject of sexual colora* 

 tion has been dieoossed in some very interesting papers by 



* Fourth edition, 1866, p. Ml. 



