SEXUAL SELECTION. 
Part #• 
386 
CHAPTER XI. 
Insects, continued. — Order Lepidopteea. 
Courtship of butterflies — Battles — Ticking noise — Colours coni' 
mon to both, sexes, or more brilliant in the males — Examples-' 
Not due to the direct action of the conditions of life — Colours 
adapted for protection — Colours of moths — Display — Per- 
ceptive powers of the Lepidoptera — Variability — Causes of the 
difference in colour between the males and females — Mimickry, 
female butterflies more brilliantly coloured than the males-' 
Bright colours of caterpillars — Summary and concluding re- 
marks on the secondary sexual characters of insects — Birds and 
iusects compared. 
In this great Order the most interesting point for us i s 
the difference in colour between the sexes of the sai» e 
species, and between the distinct species of the sai» e 
genus. Nearly the whole of the following chapter will 
he devoted to this subject ; but I will first make a fe' v 
remarks on one or two other points. Several males run/ 
often be seen pursuing and crowding round the san> e 
female. Their courtship appears to be a prolonged affair 
for I hare frequently watched one or more males pirouet- 
ting round a female until I became tired, without seeing 
the end of the courtship. Although butterflies are such 
weak and fragile creatures, they are pugnacious, and a» 
Emperor butterfly 1 * * has been captured with the tips of 
its wings broken from a conflict with another male- 
Mr. Collingwood in speaking of the frequent battle 5 
1 Apatura Iris : •' The Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer,' IS 59 ’ 
p. 1SU. For the Bornean Butterflies see C. Collingwood, ‘Gambles 0 * 
a Naturalist,’ 1868, p. 183. 
