Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/315

 but must be rather injurious than beneficial in the bird's ordinary life. The fact that they have been developed to so great an extent in a few species is an indication of such perfect adaptation to the conditions of existence, such complete success in the battle for life, that there is, in the adult male at all events, a surplus of strength, vitality, and growth-power which is able to expend itself in this way without injury. That such is the case is shown by the great abundance of most of the species which possess these wonderful superfluities of plumage. Birds of paradise are among the commonest birds in New Guinea, and their loud voices can be often heard when the birds themselves are invisible in the depths of the forest; while Indian sportsmen have described the peafowl as being so abundant, that from twelve to fifteen hundred have been seen within an hour at one spot; and they range over the whole country from the Himalayas to Ceylon. Why, in allied species, the development of accessory plumes has taken different forms, we are unable to say, except that it may be due to that individual variability which has served as the starting-point for so much of what seems to us strange in form, or fantastic in colour, both in the animal and vegetable world.

If we have found a vera causa for the origin of ornamental appendages of birds and other animals in a surplus of vital energy, leading to abnormal growths in those parts of the integument where muscular and nervous action are greatest, the continuous development of these appendages will result from the ordinary action of natural selection in preserving the most healthy and vigorous individuals, and the still further selective agency of sexual struggle in giving to the very strongest and most energetic the parentage of the next generation. And, as all the evidence goes to show that, so far as female birds exercise any choice, it is of "the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male," this form of sexual selection will act in the same direction, and help to carry on the process of plume development to its culmination. That culmination will be reached when the excessive length or abundance of the plumes begins to be injurious to the bearer of them; and it may be this check to the further lengthening of the peacock's