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would not have been decked with beautiful flowers, but would have produced only such poor flowers as
→are now borne by
our
nut and ash trees,
→by the grasses, by
spinach, docks, and
→nettles. A similar line of argument holds good with
→the many kinds of beautiful
fruits; that a ripe strawberry or cherry is as pleasing to the eye as to the
that the gaily-coloured fruit of the spindle-wood tree and the scarlet berries of the holly are beautiful
will be admitted by every one. But this beauty serves merely as a guide to birds and beasts,
→that
the fruit may be devoured and the
→seeds thus
disseminated: I infer that this is the case from having as yet found
→in every instance
that
are
→embedded
within a fruit of any
is within a fleshy or pulpy
if it be coloured of any brilliant tint, or
rendered conspicuous by being
white or
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| On the other hand, I willingly admit that a great number of male animals, as all our most gorgeous birds,
some fishes,
mammals, and a host of magnificently coloured
→and some other insects,
have been rendered beautiful for
sake; but this has been effected
→not for the delight of man, but
through sexual selection, that
the more beautiful males having been continually preferred by
→their less ornamented females. So it is with the music of birds. We may infer from all this that a
taste for beautiful colours and for musical sounds runs through a large part of the animal kingdom. When the female is as beautifully coloured as the male, which is not rarely the case with birds and butterflies, the cause
lies in the colours acquired through sexual selection having been
both sexes, instead of
the males alone. ↑
We can sometimes plainly see
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