Chap. XI. 
BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. 
407 
some days to deposit their fertilised ova and to search 
for a proper place; during this period (whilst the life 
of the male was of no importance) the brighter-coloured 
females would be exposed to danger and would be 
liable to be destroyed. The duller-coloured females on 
the other hand would survive, and thus would in- 
fluence, it might be thought, in a marked manner the 
character of the species, — either of both sexes or of 
one sex, according to which form of inheritance pre- 
vailed. But it must not be forgotten that the males 
emerge from the cocoon-state some days before the 
females, and during this period, whilst the unborn 
females were safe, the brighter-coloured males would be 
exposed to danger ; so that ultimately both sexes would 
probably be exposed during a nearly equal length of 
time to danger, and the elimination of conspicuous 
colours would not be much more effective in the one 
than the other sex. 
It is a more important consideration that female 
Lepidoptera, as Mr. Wallace remarks, and as is known 
to every collector, are generally slower flyers than 
the males. Consequently the latter, if exposed to 
greater danger from being conspicuously coloured, 
might be able to escape from their enemies, whilst the 
similarly-coloured females would be destroyed ; and thus 
the females would have the most influence in modi- 
fying the colour of their progeny. 
There is one other consideration : bright colours, as 
far as sexual selection is concerned, are commonly of 
no service to the females ; so that if the latter varied 
in brightness, and the variations were sexually limited 
in their transmission, it would depend on mere chance 
whether the females had their bright colours increased ; 
and this would tend throughout the Order to diminish 
the number of species with brightly-coloured females 
