It need scarcely be pointed out that an occasional peck can scarcely be
supposed to have led to the splendid development of color shown by some
caterpillars, and Darwin confesses that at first sight this hypothesis
appears bold, but nevertheless he believes that it will be found to be
true. He adds, “We cannot, however, at present thus explain the elegant
diversity in the colors of many caterpillars.”
A most important fact in this connection should not be overlooked,
namely, that in the caterpillar stage the sexual organs are so little
developed that it is generally impossible at this time to distinguish
between the sexes, unless a microscopic examination is made. This gives
us, perhaps, a clew as to the difference between the mature sexual
forms. These differences are connected with difference of sex itself.
This conclusion also fits in well with the fact that during the period
when the sexual organs are at the height of their development the
individuals are most brilliantly colored. The primary cause of the
brilliant color of many animals concerns us here only secondarily, for,
since it is known that many of the lower forms are no less brilliantly
and elaborately colored than are the sexes of the higher forms, it is
not surprising that the sexes themselves sometimes differ in this
respect.
Organs for producing sounds of different sorts are present in some
insects, and these organs Darwin includes under the head of secondary
sexual organs. In the group of Hemiptera, or bugs, the cicadas are the
most familiar species that produce sounds. The noise is made by the
males; the females are quite mute.
“With respect to the object of the music, Dr. Hartman, in speaking of
the _Cicada septemdecim_ of the United States, says, ‘the drums are now
(June 6th and 7th, 1851) heard in all directions. This I believe to be
the marital summons from the males. Standing in thick chestnut sprouts
about as high as my head, where hundreds were around me, I observed the
females coming around the drumming males.’ He adds, ‘this season
(August, 1868) a dwarf pear-tree in my garden produced about fifty larvæ
of _C. pruinosa_; and I several times noticed the females to alight near
a male while he was uttering his clanging notes.’ Fritz Müller writes to
me from S. Brazil that he has often listened to a musical contest
between two or three males of a species with a particularly loud voice,
seated at a considerable distance from each other: as soon as one had
finished his song, another immediately began, and then another. As there
is so much rivalry between the males, it is probable that the females
not only find them by their sounds, but that, like female birds, they
are excited or allured by the male with the most attractive voice.”
In the flies the following cases are given by Darwin:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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