Charles Darwin
PART II.
SEXUAL SELECTION—continued.
CHAPTER XII.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Fishes, Amphibians, and Reptiles.
Fishes: Courtship and battles of the males—Larger size of the females—Males, bright colours and ornamental appendages; other strange characters—Colours and appendages acquired by the males during the breeding-season alone—Fishes with both sexes brilliantly coloured—Protective colours—The less conspicuous colours of the female cannot be accounted for on the principle of protection—Male fishes building nests, and taking charge of the ova and young. Amphibians: Differences in structure and colour between the sexes—Vocal organs. Reptiles: Chelonians—Crocodiles—Snakes, colours in some cases protective—Lizards, battles of—Ornamental appendages—Strange differences in structure between the sexes—Colours—Sexual differences almost as great as with birds	1-37
CHAPTER XIII.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Birds.
Sexual differences—Law of battle—Special weapons—Vocal organs—Instrumental music—Love-antics and dances—Decorations, permanent and seasonal—Double and single annual moults—Display of ornaments by the males	38-98
CHAPTER XIV.
Birds—continued
Choice exerted by the female—Length of courtship—Unpaired birds—Mental qualities and taste for the beautiful—Preference or antipathy shewn by the female for particular males—Variability of birds—Variations sometimes abrupt—Laws of variation—Formation of ocelli—Gradations of character—Case of Peacock, Argus pheasant, and Urosticte	99-153
CHAPTER XV.
Birds—continued.
Discussion why the males alone of some species, and both sexes of other species, are brightly coloured—On sexually-limited inheritance, as applied to various structures and to brightly-coloured plumage—Nidification in relation to colour—Loss of nuptial plumage during the winter	154-182
CHAPTER XVI.
Birds—continued.
The immature plumage in relation to the character of the plumage in both sexes when adult—Six classes of cases—Sexual differences between the males of closely-allied or representative species—The female assuming the characters of the male—Plumage of the young in relation to the summer and winter plumage of the adults—On the increase of beauty in the Birds of the World—Protective colouring—Conspicuously-coloured birds—Novelty appreciated—Summary of the four chapters on birds	183-238
CHAPTER XVII.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals.
The law of battle—Special weapons, confined to the males—Cause of absence of weapons in the female—Weapons common to both sexes, yet primarily acquired by the male—Other uses of such weapons—Their high importance—Greater size of the male—Means of defence—On the preference shewn by either sex in the pairing of quadrupeds	239-273
CHAPTER XVIII.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals.—continued.
Voice—Remarkable sexual peculiarities in seals—Odour—Development of the hair—Colour of the hair and skin—Anomalous case of the female being more ornamented than the male—Colour and ornaments due to sexual selection—Colour acquired for the sake of protection—Colour, though common to both sexes, often due to sexual selection—On the disappearance of spots and stripes in adult quadrupeds—On the colours and ornaments of the Quadrumana—Summary	274-315
CHAPTER XIX.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals.—continued.
Differences between man and woman—Causes of such differences and of certain characters common to both sexes—Law of battle—Differences in mental powers—and voice—On the influence of beauty in determining the marriages of mankind—Attention paid by savages to ornaments—Their ideas of beauty in woman—The tendency to exaggerate each natural peculiarity	316-354
CHAPTER XX.
Secondary Sexual Characters of Man—continued.
On the effects of the continued selection of women according to a different standard of beauty in each race—On the causes which interfere with sexual selection in civilised and savage nations—Conditions favourable to sexual selection during primeval times—On the manner of action of sexual selection with mankind—On the women in savage tribes having some power to choose their husbands—Absence of hair on the body, and development of the beard—Colour of the skin—Summary	355-384
CHAPTER XXI.
General Summary and Conclusion.
Main conclusion that man is descended from some lower form—Manner of development—Genealogy of man—Intellectual and moral faculties—Sexual selection—Concluding remarks	385-405
Index	406

POSTSCRIPT.

Vol. I. pp. 297-299.—I have fallen into a serious and unfortunate error, in relation to the sexual differences of animals, in attempting to explain what seemed to me a singular coincidence in the late period of life at which the necessary variations have arisen in many cases, and the late period at which sexual selection acts. The explanation given is wholly erroneous, as I have discovered by working out an illustration in figures. Moreover, the supposed coincidence of period is far from general, and is not remarkable; for, as I have elsewhere attempted to show, variations arising early in life have often been accumulated through sexual selection, being then commonly transmitted to both sexes. On the other hand, variations arising late in life cannot fail to coincide approximately in period with that of the process of sexual selection. Allusions to these erroneous views reappear in Vol. II. pp. 161 and 237.