Here, surely, is a final answer to those assertions as to indifference on the part of the female, which, though made in the teeth of probability, are often, on account of the difficulties of observation, almost impossible to disprove. Here are two kinds of males, one lively and with moustaches, the other not so lively and without them; as the first is always, or even, say, generally chosen, his appearance must be preferred. Were it only his liveliness, as Dr. Wallace has suggested, why should he have acquired another dress as well as another dance? or, if the female can have a choice as between liveliness and slowness, as between a jig and a minuet, why, in Heaven’s name, should she not have one as between one get-up and another? Sexual selection might, I think, be put to the test in this one species with its two male forms. Let but a sufficient number of courtships be observed and reported on, and if _niger_, in a large percentage of them, wins the day, choice on the part of the female—the only link in the chain of evidence which it is at all possible to deny—is a proved thing. But to continue: “He—_niger_—is bolder in his manners (no wonder he prevails), and we have never seen him assume the prone position, as the red form did, when close to the female. He always held one or both of the first legs high in the air, waving them wildly to and fro; or when the female became excited, he stood perfectly motionless before her, sometimes for a whole minute, seeming to fascinate her by the power of his glance”[133]—greatly aided probably by the three tufts of hair showing through the archway of the uplifted legs. Here, again, too, as in some of the other species—perhaps all—“although the males were continually waving their first legs at each other, their quarrels were harmless. It was quite otherwise with the females, since they not only kept the other sex in awe of them, but not infrequently in their battles killed each other.”[133] As the males cannot win the females by fighting, what have they to contend with effectively except these curious, elaborate, and most interesting displays, the purpose of which is so excessively obvious? On the other hand, the fact that the females yield, almost against their nature, to these displays, that they are slowly and gradually won through their means, is proof positive that they like them, and if so, how is it possible that they should not like one more or less than another? What, in fact, is choice but a greater or less reaction to this stimulus or to that? The initial absurdity of laying claim to a monopoly of such a capacity as this, either in our matrimonial affairs, or any other matter in which animals participate, has not been sufficiently dwelt upon.