The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (books like harry potter TXT) 📕

To return to our more immediate subject. The case stands thus: female fishes, as far as I can learn, never willingly spawn except in the presence of the males; and the males never fertilise the ova except in the presence of the females. The males fight for the possession of the females. In many species, the males whilst young resemble the females in colour; but when adult become much more brilliant, and retain their colours throughout life. In other species the males become brighter than the females and otherwise more highly ornamented, only during the season of love. The males sedulously court the females, and in one case, as we have seen, take pains in displaying their beauty before them. Can it be believed that they would thus act to no purpose during their courtship? And this would be the case, unless the females exert some choice and select those males which please or excite them most. If the female exerts such choice, all the above facts on the ornamentation of the males become at once intelligible by the aid of sexual selection.

We have next to inquire whether this view of the bright colours of certain male fishes having been acquired through sexual selection can, through the law of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes, be extended to those groups in which the males and females are brilliant in the same, or nearly the same degree and manner. In such a genus as Labrus, which includes some of the most splendid fishes in the world—for instance, the Peacock Labrus (L. pavo), described (28. Bory Saint Vincent, in ‘Dict. Class. d’Hist. Nat.’ tom. ix. 1826, p. 151.), with pardonable exaggeration, as formed of polished scales of gold, encrusting lapis-lazuli, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and amethysts—we may, with much probability, accept this belief; for we have seen that the sexes in at least one species of the genus differ greatly in colour. With some fishes, as with many of the lowest animals, splendid colours may be the direct result of the nature of their tissues and of the surrounding conditions, without the aid of selection of any kind. The gold-fish (Cyprinus auratus), judging from the analogy of the golden variety of the common carp, is perhaps a case in point, as it may owe its splendid colours to a single abrupt variation, due to the conditions to which this fish has been subjected under confinement. It is, however, more probable that these colours have been intensified through artificial selection, as this species has been carefully bred in China from a remote period. (29. Owing to some remarks on this subject, made in my work ‘On the Variation of Animals under Domestication,’ Mr. W.F. Mayers (‘Chinese Notes and Queries,’ Aug. 1868, p. 123) has searched the ancient Chinese encyclopedias. He finds that gold-fish were first reared in confinement during the Sung Dynasty, which commenced A.D. 960. In the year 1129 these fishes abounded. In another place it is said that since the year 1548 there has been “produced at Hangchow a variety called the fire-fish, from its intensely red colour. It is universally admired, and there is not a household where it is not cultivated, IN RIVALRY AS TO ITS COLOUR, and as a source of profit.”) Under natural conditions it does not seem probable that beings so highly organised as fishes, and which live under such complex relations, should become brilliantly coloured without suffering some evil or receiving some benefit from so great a change, and consequently without the intervention of natural selection.

What, then, are we to conclude in regard to the many fishes, both sexes of which are splendidly coloured? Mr. Wallace (30. ‘Westminster Review,’ July 1867, p. 7.) believes that the species which frequent reefs, where corals and other brightly-coloured organisms abound, are brightly coloured in order to escape detection by their enemies; but according to my recollection they were thus rendered highly conspicuous. In the fresh- waters of the tropics there are no brilliantly-coloured corals or other organisms for the fishes to resemble; yet many species in the Amazons are beautifully coloured, and many of the carnivorous Cyprinidae in India are ornamented with “bright longitudinal lines of various tints.” (31. ‘Indian Cyprinidae,’ by Mr. M’Clelland, ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. xix. part ii. 1839, p. 230.) Mr. M’Clelland, in describing these fishes, goes so far as to suppose that “the peculiar brilliancy of their colours” serves as “a better mark for king-fishers, terns, and other birds which are destined to keep the number of these fishes in check”; but at the present day few naturalists will admit that any animal has been made conspicuous as an aid to its own destruction. It is possible that certain fishes may have been rendered conspicuous in order to warn birds and beasts of prey that they were unpalatable, as explained when treating of caterpillars; but it is not, I believe, known that any fish, at least any fresh-water fish, is rejected from being distasteful to fish-devouring animals. On the whole, the most probable view in regard to the fishes, of which both sexes are brilliantly coloured, is that their colours were acquired by the males as a sexual ornament, and were transferred equally, or nearly so, to the other sex.

We have now to consider whether, when the male differs in a marked manner from the female in colour or in other ornaments, he alone has been modified, the variations being inherited by his male offspring alone; or whether the female has been specially modified and rendered inconspicuous for the sake of protection, such modifications being inherited only by the females. It is impossible to doubt that colour has been gained by many fishes as a protection: no one can examine the speckled upper surface of a flounder, and overlook its resemblance to the sandy bed of the sea on which it lives. Certain fishes, moreover, can through the action of the nervous system change their colours in adaptation to surrounding objects, and that within a short time. (32. G. Pouchet, ‘L’Institut.’ Nov. 1, 1871, p. 134.) One of the most striking instances ever recorded of an animal being protected by its colour (as far as it can be judged of in preserved specimens), as well as by its form, is that given by Dr. Gunther (33. ‘Proc. Zoolog. Soc.’ 1865, p. 327, pl. xiv. and xv.) of a pipe-fish, which, with its reddish streaming filaments, is hardly distinguishable from the sea-weed to which it clings with its prehensile tail. But the question now under consideration is whether the females alone have been modified for this object. We can see that one sex will not be modified through natural selection for the sake of protection more than the other, supposing both to vary, unless one sex is exposed for a longer period to danger, or has less power of escaping from such danger than the other; and it does not appear that with fishes the sexes differ in these respects. As far as there is any difference, the males, from being generally smaller and from wandering more about, are exposed to greater danger than the females; and yet, when the sexes differ, the males are almost always the more conspicuously coloured. The ova are fertilised immediately after being deposited; and when this process lasts for several days, as in the case of the salmon (34. Yarrell, ‘British Fishes,’ vol. ii. p. 11.), the female, during the whole time, is attended by the male. After the ova are fertilised they are, in most cases, left unprotected by both parents, so that the males and females, as far as oviposition is concerned, are equally exposed to danger, and both are equally important for the production of fertile ova; consequently the more or less brightly-coloured individuals of either sex would be equally liable to be destroyed or preserved, and both would have an equal influence on the colours of their offspring.

Certain fishes, belonging to several families, make nests, and some of them take care of their young when hatched. Both sexes of the bright coloured Crenilabrus massa and melops work together in building their nests with sea-weed, shells, etc. (35. According to the observations of M. Gerbe; see Gunther’s ‘Record of Zoolog. Literature,’ 1865, p. 194.) But the males of certain fishes do all the work, and afterwards take exclusive charge of the young. This is the case with the dull-coloured gobies (36. Cuvier, ‘Regne Animal,’ vol. ii. 1829, p. 242.), in which the sexes are not known to differ in colour, and likewise with the sticklebacks (Gasterosteus), in which the males become brilliantly coloured during the spawning season. The male of the smooth-tailed stickleback (G. leiurus) performs the duties of a nurse with exemplary care and vigilance during a long time, and is continually employed in gently leading back the young to the nest, when they stray too far. He courageously drives away all enemies including the females of his own species. It would indeed be no small relief to the male, if the female, after depositing her eggs, were immediately devoured by some enemy, for he is forced incessantly to drive her from the nest. (37. See Mr. Warington’s most interesting description of the habits of the Gasterosteus leiurus in ‘Annals and Magazine of Nat. History,’ November

1855.)

The males of certain other fishes inhabiting South America and Ceylon, belonging to two distinct Orders, have the extraordinary habit of hatching within their mouths, or branchial cavities, the eggs laid by the females. (38. Prof. Wyman, in ‘Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.’ Sept. 15, 1857. Also Prof. Turner, in ‘Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,’ Nov. 1, 1866, p. 78. Dr. Gunther has likewise described other cases.) I am informed by Professor Agassiz that the males of the Amazonian species which follow this habit, “not only are generally brighter than the females, but the difference is greater at the spawning-season than at any other time.” The species of Geophagus act in the same manner; and in this genus, a conspicuous protuberance becomes developed on the forehead of the males during the breeding-season. With the various species of Chromids, as Professor Agassiz likewise informs me, sexual differences in colour may be observed, “whether they lay their eggs in the water among aquatic plants, or deposit them in holes, leaving them to come out without further care, or build shallow nests in the river mud, over which they sit, as our Pomotis does. It ought also to be observed that these sitters are among the brightest species in their respective families; for instance, Hygrogonus is bright green, with large black ocelli, encircled with the most brilliant red.” Whether with all the species of Chromids it is the male alone which sits on the eggs is not known. It is, however, manifest that the fact of the eggs being protected or unprotected by the parents, has had little or no influence on the differences in colour between the sexes. It is further manifest, in all the cases in which the males take exclusive charge of the nests and young, that the destruction of the brighter-coloured males would be far more influential on the character of the race, than the destruction of the brighter-coloured females; for the death of the male during the period