I even
misdoubt much whether the less blackness of blackbird is for protection.
Again, can you give me reason for believing that the merest differences
between female pheasants, the female _Gallus bankiva_, the female of
black grouse, the pea-hen, female partridge, have all special reference
to protection under slightly different conditions? I of course admit
that they are all protected by dull colours, derived, as I think, from
some dull-ground progenitor; and I account partly for their difference
by partial transference of colour from the male, and by other means too
long to specify; but I earnestly wish to see reason to believe that each
is specially adapted for concealment to its environment.
I grieve to differ from you, and it actually terrifies me, and makes me
constantly distrust myself.
I fear we shall never quite understand each other. I value the cases of
bright-coloured, incubating male fishes--and brilliant female
butterflies, solely as showing that one sex may be made brilliant
without any necessary transference of beauty to the other sex; for in
these cases I cannot suppose that beauty in the other sex was checked by
selection.
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