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Show 22 SEXUAJ, SELECTION. 1'.\ln' ll. however, offers a very curious exceptional case,3 G for tho female is much more vividly coloured and. spotted than the male, and she alone has a marsupial sack ancl hatches the eggs ; so that the female ?.f .Solcn_o. tom a di:fC ,rs from all the other Lopbobranchn m this latter rcs1~ect, and from almost all other fis~es~ in being more brightly coloured than the male. It IS 1mprobabl.e that this remarkable double inversion of character m the female should be an accidental coincidence. As the males of several fishes which take exclusive charge of the eggs and young are more brightly coloured than the females and as here the female Solenostoma take· the same charge and is brighter than the male, it mi~ht be argued that the conspicuous colours of the sex whwh is the most important of the two for the welfare of the offspring must serve, in orne manner, as a protecti?n. But from the multitude of fishes, the males of whiCh are either permanently or periodicaUy brighter than the females, but whose life is not at all more important than that of the female for the welfare of the species, this view can hardly be maintained. vVhen we treat of birds· we shall meet with analogous cases in which there bas been a complete inversion of the usual attributes of the two sexes, and we shall then give what appears to be the probable explanation, namely, that the males have selected the more attractive females, instead of the latter having selected, in accordance with the usual rule throughout the animal kingdom, the more attractive males. On the whole we may conclude, that with most fishes, in which the sexes differ in colour or in other · orna- :IG Dr. C iinther, since publishing an account of i.his species in ' 'rho Fishes of Zanzibar,' by Col. Plnyfuir, 18G6, p. 137, has re-exo.mineu tho ~pccimcns, and hns given me the above information. ·C IIAP. XJL Fl~liES. mental characters, the males oriaiun.lly varied with theit· . • 0 ' vanatwns transmitted to the same sex, and accnmulatecl through sexual selection by attmcting or exciting the females. In many cases, however, sncl1 characters have ~eou transferred, either parti~Uy or completely, to the ernales. In other cases, agam, both sexes have been ?olourecl alike for the sake of protection; but in no mstaucc docs it appear that the female alone has bad he~· colours or other characters specially modified for tlus purpose. The last point which nerd be 11oticcd is that in many pa~'ts of t~e world fishes are known to mako peculiar no1 ·o~, whteh are described in some cases as bcina mnsical. Very little has been a, certained with respect to the means by which such sounds are produced, and oven ~e s ~bout their purpo. e. The drumming of the Umbr111as m the European seas is said to be aw.Jib1e from a depth of twenty fathoms. The fishermen of Hoch~lle assert " that the males alone make the noise .:: ~u~·mg. the. spawning-time; anc~ that it is possible by 1m1tatm~ It, to take them without bait." 37 If this statement 1s trustworthy, we have an instance in this t,he lowes~ .class of the Vertebrata, of what we shali find pre:mlmg th~·oughout the other vertebrate classes, ~ml whiCh prevmls, as we have already seen, with msects and spiders; namely, that vocal and instrumental sounds so commonly serve ns a love-call or as a love-charm, that the power of producino- them was pro~ably first developed in connection wit!~ the propa, gahon of the species. Ji The Rev. C. Kingsl ey, in 'Nature,' l\Iay, 1870, p. 40. |