We thus see that the cases in which female birds are more conspicuously coloured than the males, with the young in their immature plumage resembling the adult males instead of the adult females, as in the previous class, are not numerous, though they are distributed in various Orders. The amount of difference, also, between the sexes is incomparably less than that which frequently occurs in the last class; so that the cause of the difference, whatever it may have been, has acted on the females in the present class either less energetically or less persistently than on the males in the last class. Mr. Wallace believes that the males have had their colours rendered less conspicuous for the sake of protection during the period of incubation; but the difference between the sexes in hardly any of the foregoing cases appears sufficiently great for this view to be safely accepted. In some of the cases the brighter tints of the female are almost confined to the lower surface, and the males, if thus coloured, would not have been exposed to danger whilst sitting on the eggs. It should also be borne in mind that the males are not only in a slight degree less conspicuously coloured than the females, but are of less size, and have less strength. They have, moreover, not only acquired the maternal instinct of incubation, but are less pugnacious and vociferous than the females, and in one instance have simpler vocal organs. Thus an almost complete transposition of the instincts, habits, disposition, colour, size, and of some points of structure, has been effected between the two sexes. Now if we might assume that the males in the present class have lost some of that ardour which is usual to their sex, so that they no longer search eagerly for the females; or, if we might assume that the females have become much more numerous than the males—and in the case of one Indian Turnix the females are said to be “much more commonly met with than the males”[254]—then it is not improbable that the females would have been led to court the males, instead of being courted by them. This indeed is the case to a certain extent, with some birds, as we have seen with the peahen, wild turkey, and certain kinds of grouse. Taking as our guide the habits of most male birds, the greater size and strength and the extraordinary pugnacity of the females of the Turnix and Emu, must mean that they endeavour to drive away rival females, in order to gain possession of the male; and on this view, all the facts become clear; for the males would probably be most charmed or excited by the females which were the most attractive to them by their brighter colours, other ornaments, or vocal powers. Sexual selection would then soon do its work, steadily adding to the attractions of the females; the males and the young being left not at all, or but little modified.