374 Evolution and Adaptation 



the female may also have to be taken into account, although, 

 for all we know to the contrary, the same results might 

 follow were there no secondary sexual character at all, as 

 is, in fact, the case in most animals. 



I have a strong suspicion that much that has been written 

 on this subject is imaginative, and in large part fictitious; so 

 that it may, after all, be the wisest course not to attempt to 

 explain how this relation has arisen until we have a more 

 definite conception of what we are really called upon to 

 explain. For example, when we see a gorgeously bedecked 

 male displaying himself before a female, we feel that his finery 

 must have been acquired for this very purpose. On the 

 other hand, when we see an unornamented male also making 

 definite movements before the female, we do not feel called 

 upon to explain the origin of his colors. Now, it is not im- 

 probable that the ornaments of the first individual have not 

 been acquired in order to display them before the female, 

 and this view seems to me the more probable. From this 

 standpoint our problem is at least much simplified. What 

 we need to account for is only that the male is excited to 

 undergo certain movements in the presence of the female, 

 and possibly that the female may be influenced by the re- 

 sult. That this view is the more profitable is indicated by 

 the occurrence of secondary sexual characters in the lower 

 forms, as in the insects and crustaceans, in which it appears 

 almost inconceivable that the ornamentation could have been 

 acquired in connection with the aesthetic taste of the other 

 sex. It does not seem to me that the conditions in the 

 higher animals call for any other explanation than that which 

 applies to these lower forms. 



My position may be summed up in the statement, that, 

 while in some cases there appears to be a connection between 

 the presence in one sex of secondary sexual organs and their 

 effect on the other sex, yet their origin cannot be explained 

 on account of this connection. 



