ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the arguments are not trustworthy in favour of the view that weapons, bright colours, and various ornaments, are now confined to the males owing to the conversion, by Natural Selection, of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes, into transmission to the male sex alone. It is also doubtful whether the colours of many female birds are due to the preservation, for the sake of protection, of variations which were from the first limited in their transmission to the female sex. But it will be convenient to defer any further discussion on this subject until author treat, in the chapter, of the differences in plumage between the young and old. This appears more probable than that the species in all cases originally tended to retain their ornamental plumage during the winter, but were saved from this through Natural Selection, resulting from the inconvenience or danger thus caused.
