162 
SEXUAL SELECTION: BIRDS. 
PART 1 
Before we enter on the subject of colour, 
ioP s ’ 
especially in reference to Mr. Wallace’s concln s1 ' 
it may be useful to discuss under a similar p°' u ^ ^ 
breed of fowls formerly existed in Germany 5 in 
view some other differences between the sexes- , 
•5 i„ wll' C J 
the bens were furnished with spurs; they were 
layers, but they so greatly disturbed their nests '' 1 . f 
their spurs that they could not be allowed to sit ou 1 
own eggs. Hence at one time it appeared to w° 1' , 
itli the females of the wild Galh’ 118,0 ^ 
tbt ir 
bable that w . (l 
the development of spurs had been checked tin' 0 ’ 1 ' 
natural selection, from the injury thus caused to \ „ 
nests. This seemed all the more probable as the "j 1 
,ti<” ) ' 
spurs, which could not be injurious during uidifi cil 
are often as well developed in the female as jrl ^ 
male ; though in not a few cases they are rather ;|1 ' 
in the male. When the male is furnished with y- 
spurs the female almost always exhibits rudime®^^ 
them, — the rudiment sometimes consisting of a 
scale, as with the species of Gallus. Hence it 
be argued that the females had aboriginally been 
nished with well-developed spurs, but that these j 
subsequently been lost either through disuse or nil * U , - 
selection. But if this view be admitted, it would , 
to be extended to innumerable other cases ; and lt 
plies that the female progenitors of the existing '1 - 
bearing species were once encumbered with 
j urious appendage. uj, 
In some few genera and species, as in Gallop^ 
4 
Acomus, and the Javan peacock ( Pavo muiiG^ s ) : * 
females, as well as the males, possess well-de' e 
spurs. Are we to infer from this fact that they 
5 Beehstein, 1 Naturgesch. Deutschlands,’ 1703, B. iii. 
33?- 
