344 
SEXUAL SELECTION. 
Part It 
with cushions of hair, exactly like those on the tarsi of 
the Carabidse, “ and obviously for the same end.” In 
male dragon-flies, “ the appendages at the tip of the tail 
“ are modified in an almost infinite variety of curious 
“ patterns to enable them to embrace 
“ the neck of the female.” Lastly in 
the males of many insects, the legs 
are furnished with peculiar spines, 
knobs or spurs; or the whole leg is 
bowed or thickened, but this is by 
no means invariably a sexual cha- 
racter ; or one pair, or all three 
pairs are elongated, sometimes to 
an extravagant length. 8 
In all the orders, the sexes of 
many species present differences, of 
which the meaning is not under- 
stood. One curious case is that of 
a beetle (fig. 9), the male of which 
has the left mandible much en- 
larged ; so that the mouth is greatly 
distorted. In another Carabidous 
beetle, the Eurygnathus, 9 we have 
the unique case, as far as known to 
Mr. Wollaston, of the head of the 
female being much broader and 
larger, though in a variable degree, 
than that of the male. Any number 
of such cases could be given. They 
abound in the Lcpidopteia : ' one 
of the most extraordinary is that 
certain male butterflies have their fore-le"s more or 
O 
Fig. 9. Taphroderos distortus 
(much enlarged). Upper 
figure, male ; lower figure , 
female. 
8 Kirby and Spence, ‘In fcroduct.’ &c„ vol. iii. p. 332-336. 
9 ‘ Insecta Maderensia,’ 1854, p. 20. 
