94 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



one line, but along many lines. What has guided it 

 along these lines?" There are apparently but two views 

 to take in regard to the beautiful in life, either that 

 which appeals to the aesthetic taste of man in animal and 

 floral colors has been developed solely for the utility of 

 the individual possessing it, in accordance with the 

 general laws of growth (such as the direct action of the 

 environment, the structure of the integument, etc.), in 

 which event any beauty which it may possess for man is 

 purely incidental or a mere coincidence; or else it has 

 been produced by the selection of the most beautiful, 

 generally by the female. 



Even Wallace admits that the beautiful colors of flow- 

 ering plants have been produced by the selective agency 

 of insects which aid in fertilization. Prof. Peckham has 

 shown that in all probability the brilliant colors of some 

 spiders have been produced by the selective agency of 

 the female, while the argument for sexual selection in 

 birds has a great deal in its favor. But it is not a little 

 remarkable that those things which appeal to man as 

 beautiful should be the same ones that affect animals as 

 low in the scale as insects. Mr. E. B. Poulton believes 

 this aesthetic sense to be generally present in the ani- 

 mals as well as in man. He says: * " If an artist, en- 

 tirely ignorant of natural history, were asked to arrange 

 all the brightly colored butterflies and moths in Eng- 

 land in two divisions, the one containing all the beau- 

 tiful patterns and combinations of color, the other 

 including the staring, strongly contrasted colors, and 

 crude patterns, we should- find that the latter would con- 

 tain, with hardly an exception, the species in which in- 

 dependent evidence has shown, or is likely to show, the 

 existence of some unpleasant quality. The former 

 division would contain the colors displayed in courtship 



*1. c, p. 316 



