“Now, what must we conclude with respect to such sexual differences as
these? No one will pretend that the beards of certain male goats, or the
dewlap of the bull, or the crests of hair along the backs of certain
male antelopes, are of any use to them in their ordinary habits.
“Must we attribute all these appendages of hair or skin to mere
purposeless variability in the male? It cannot be denied that this is
possible; for in many domesticated quadrupeds, certain characters,
apparently not derived through reversion from any wild parent form, are
confined to the males, or are more developed in them than in the
females—for instance, the hump on the male zebu cattle of India, the
tail of fat-tailed rams, the arched outline of the forehead in the males
of several breeds of sheep, and, lastly, the mane, the long hairs on the
hind-legs, and the dewlap of the male of the Berbura goat.”
In these cases and in others that Darwin cites, which seem clearly to
indicate that some of these secondary sexual characters are not the
result of sexual selection, he concludes, “that they must be due to
simple variability, together with sexually limited inheritance.
“Hence it appears reasonable to extend this same view to all analogous
cases with animals in a state of nature. Nevertheless I cannot persuade
myself that it generally holds good, as in the case of the extraordinary
development of hair on the throat and fore-legs of the male Ammotragus,
or in that of the immense beard of the male Pithecia. Such study as I
have been able to give to nature makes me believe that parts or organs
which are highly developed, were acquired at some period for a special
purpose. With those antelopes in which the adult male is more strongly
colored than the female, and with those monkeys in which the hair on the
face is elegantly arranged and colored in a diversified manner, it seems
probable that the crests and tufts of hair were gained as ornaments; and
this I know is the opinion of some naturalists. If this be correct,
there can be little doubt that they were gained, or at least modified
through sexual selection; but how far the same view may be extended to
other mammals is doubtful.”
The astonishing colors in some of the monkeys cannot be passed over
without comment.
“In the beautiful _Cercopithecus diana_, the head of the adult male is
of an intense black, whilst that of the female is dark gray; in the
former the fur between the thighs is of an elegant fawn-color, in the
latter it is paler.
“In the _Cercopithecus cynosurus_ and _griseoviridis_ one part of the
body, which is confined to the male sex, is of the most brilliant blue
or green, and contrasts strikingly with the naked skin on the hinder
part of the body, which is vivid red.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account