Although we must admit that many quadrupeds have received their present tints as a protection, yet with a host of species, the colours are far too conspicuous and too singularly arranged to allow us to suppose that they serve for this purpose. We may take as an illustration certain antelopes: when we see that the square white patch on the throat, the white marks on the fetlocks, and the round black spots on the ears, are all more distinct in the male of the _Portax picta_, than in the female;—when we see that the colours are more vivid, that the narrow white lines on the flank and the broad white bar on the shoulder are more distinct in the male _Oreas derbyanus_ than in the female;—when we see a similar difference between the sexes of the curiously-ornamented _Tragelaphus scriptus_ (fig. 68),—we may conclude that these colours and various marks have been at least intensified through sexual selection. It is inconceivable that such colours and marks can be of any direct or ordinary service to these animals; and as they have almost certainly been intensified through sexual selection, it is probable that they were originally gained through this same process, and then partially transferred to the females. If this view be admitted, there can be little doubt that the equally singular colours and marks of many other antelopes, though common to both sexes, have been gained and transmitted in a like manner. Both sexes, for instance, of the Koodoo (_Strepsiceros Kudu_, fig. 62) have narrow white vertical lines on their hinder flanks, and an elegant angular white mark on their foreheads. Both sexes in the genus Damalis are very oddly coloured; in _D. pygarga_ the back and neck are purplish-red, shading on the flanks into black, and abruptly separated from the white belly and a large white space on the buttocks; the head is still more oddly coloured, a large oblong white mask, narrowly-edged with black, covers the face up to the eyes (fig. 69); there are three white stripes on the forehead, and the ears are marked with white. The fawns of this species are of a uniform pale yellowish-brown. In _Damalis albifrons_ the colouring of the head differs from that in the last species in a single white stripe replacing the three stripes, and in the ears being almost wholly white.[368] After having studied to the best of my ability the sexual differences of animals belonging to all classes, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the curiously-arranged colours of many antelopes, though common to both sexes, are the result of sexual selection primarily applied to the male.