Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- POSTSCRIPT
- PART II SEXUAL SELECTION—continued
- CHAPTER XII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF FISHES, AMPHIBIANS, AND REPTILES
- CHAPTER XIII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF BIRDS
- CHAPTER XIV BIRDS—continued
- CHAPTER XV BIRDS—continued
- CHAPTER XVI BIRDS—concluded
- CHAPTER XVII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS
- CHAPTER XVIII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS—continued
- CHAPTER XIX SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN
- CHAPTER XX SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN—continued
- CHAPTER XXI GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
- INDEX
CHAPTER XVI - BIRDS—concluded
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- POSTSCRIPT
- PART II SEXUAL SELECTION—continued
- CHAPTER XII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF FISHES, AMPHIBIANS, AND REPTILES
- CHAPTER XIII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF BIRDS
- CHAPTER XIV BIRDS—continued
- CHAPTER XV BIRDS—continued
- CHAPTER XVI BIRDS—concluded
- CHAPTER XVII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS
- CHAPTER XVIII SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS—continued
- CHAPTER XIX SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN
- CHAPTER XX SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN—continued
- CHAPTER XXI GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
- INDEX
Summary
We must now consider the transmission of characters as limited by age in reference to sexual selection. The truth and importance of the principle of inheritance at corresponding ages need not here be discussed, as enough has already been said on the subject. Before giving the several rather complex rules or classes of cases, under which all the differences in plumage between the young and the old, as far as known to me, may be included, it will be well to make a few preliminary remarks.
With animals of all kinds when the young differ in colour from the adults, and the colours of the former are not, as far as we can see, of any special service, they may generally be attributed, like various embryological structures, to the retention by the young of the character of an early progenitor. But this view can be maintained with confidence, only when the young of several species closely resemble each other, and likewise resemble other adult species belonging to the same group; for the latter are the living proofs that such a state of things was formerly possible. Young lions and pumas are marked with feeble stripes or rows of spots, and as many allied species both young and old are similarly marked, no naturalist, who believes in the gradual evolution of species, will doubt that the progenitor of the lion and puma was a striped animal, the young having retained vestiges of the stripes, like the kittens of black cats, which when grown up are not in the least striped.
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- The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex , pp. 183 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1871