SEXUAL SELECTION 401 



best in finding partners, rugosities on various parts of their 

 bodies were gradually developed by means of sexual selec- 

 tion into true stridulating organs. 



CHAPTEE XI 



INSECTS, continued — oedee, lepidopteea 



(butterflies and moths) 



Courtship of butterflies — Battles — Ticking noise — Colors common to both 

 sexes, or more brilliant in the males — Examples — Not due to the direct 

 action of the conditions of life — Colors adapted for protection — Colors 

 of moths — Display — Perceptive powers of the Lepidoptera — Variability 



— Causes of the difference in color between the males and females 



Mimicry, female butterflies more brilliantly colored than the males 

 — Bright colors of caterpillars — Summary and concluding remarks 

 on the secondary sexual characters of Insects — ^Birds and insects 

 compared 



IN this great Order the most interesting points for us are 

 the differences in color between the sexes of the same 

 species, and between the distinct species of the same 

 genus. Nearly the whole of the following chapter will be 

 devoted to this subject; but I will first make a few remarks 

 on one or two other points. Several males may often be 

 seen pursuing and crowding round the same female. Their 

 courtship appears to be a prolonged affair, for I have fre- 

 quently watched one or more males pirouetting round a 

 female until I was tired, without seeing the end of the 

 courtship. Mr. A. G. Butler also informs me that he has 

 several times watched a male courting a female for a full 

 quarter of an hour; but she pertinaciously refused him, and 

 at last settled on the ground and closed her wings, so as to 

 escape from his addresses. 



Although butterflies are weak and fragile creatures, they 

 are pugnacious, and an Emperor butterfly' has been cap- 



' Apaturalris: "The Entomologist's Weekly Intelligence," 1859, p. 139. 

 For the Bornean Butterflies, see C. Collingwood, "Rambles of a Naturalist," 

 1868, p. 183. 



