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 zsthetic 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. 
