18 Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
males. Moreover, contest for the female is by no means 
a universal feature of animal courtship. Prior appearance 
in the field is undoubtedly quite as valuable a factor and 
one which does not necessitate physical vigor. In an ampli¬ 
fication of Darwin’s sexual selection theory Prof. Geddes 
says: “Just as man can in a short time give beauty to his 
domestic birds, so there is no good reason to doubt that 
female birds in thousands of generations by selecting, as 
they are observed to do, the most melodious or beautiful 
males, might produce a marked effect, and many sexual 
differences are thus explained.” 
This certainly is very ingenious, but Professor Geddes is 
too ready to accept a possible means for an ascertained one. If 
it were a fact that the females of animals chose their mates 
on account of the attractiveness of the latter it might be 
assumed that this was a vera causa of sexual variation. But, 
in the first place sexual variation, such as is here described, 
is practically confined to birds and insects, which as a class 
are brightly colored. A cause which is applicable to but 
two or three classes can never be a general one. Moreover 
it is doubtful whether it is true even of birds and insects, 
for it assumes on their part a comprehension and appreci¬ 
ation of physical beauty as manifested in coloration, which 
so far as can be seen, is confined to man. Naturalists have 
not yet shown that even the highest animals possess a color 
sense. We know that savage man even has but a limited 
appreciation of color; two or three crude and glaring tones, 
sharply juxtaposed, are for him the height of beauty. What 
ground is there then for assuming that insects, for example, 
so far below man in the scale of being, have a more devel¬ 
oped color sense than he has, and are attracted not merely 
by brightly contrasted colors but by those beautiful broken 
hues and delicate harmonious tones, which please the most 
educated eye and gratify the most refined taste in man? 
I do not deny that there may possibly be among birds a 
rudimentary appreciation of a certain kind of beauty, but 
that it is to any extent general among animals or is in any 
