We have now to consider whether, when the male differs in a marked manner from the female in colour or in other ornaments, he alone has been modified, with the variations inherited only by his male offspring; or whether the female has been specially modified and rendered inconspicuous for the sake of protection, such modifications being inherited only by the females. It is impossible to doubt that colour has been acquired by many fishes as a protection: no one can behold the speckled upper surface of a flounder, and overlook its resemblance to the sandy bed of the sea on which it lives. One of the most striking instances ever recorded of an animal gaining protection by its colour (as far as can be judged in preserved specimens) and by its form, is that given by Dr. Günther[29] of a pipe-fish, which, with its reddish streaming filaments, is hardly distinguishable from the sea-weed to which it clings with its prehensile tail. But the question now under consideration is whether the females alone have been modified for this object. Fishes offer valuable evidence on this head. We can see that one sex will not be modified through natural selection for the sake of protection more than the other, supposing both to vary, unless one sex is exposed for a longer period to danger, or has less power of escaping from such danger than the other sex; and it does not appear that with fishes the sexes differ in these respects. As far as there is any difference, the males, from being generally of smaller size, and from wandering more about, are exposed to greater danger than the females; and yet, when the sexes differ, the males are almost always the most conspicuously coloured. The ova are fertilised immediately after being deposited, and when this process lasts for several days, as in the case of the salmon,[30] the female, during the whole time, is attended by the male. After the ova are fertilised they are, in most cases, left unprotected by both parents, so that the males and females, as far as oviposition is concerned, are equally exposed to danger, and both are equally important for the production of fertile ova; consequently the more or less brightly-coloured individuals of either sex would be equally liable to be destroyed or preserved, and both would have an equal influence on the colours of their offspring or the race.