It is a remarkable fact, that the secondary differences between the two sexes of the same species are generally displayed in the very same parts of the organisation in which the species of the same genus differ from each other.
Of this fact I will give in illustration the two first instances which happen to stand on my list; and as the differences inthese cases are of a very unusual nature, the relation can hardly be accidental.
The same number of joints in the tarsi is a character common to very large groups of beetles, but in the Engidoe, as Westwood has remarked, the number vary greatly; and the number likewise differs in the two sexes of the same species.
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| beetle |
Again in the fossorial hymenoptera, the neuration of the wings is a character of the highest importance, because common to large groups; but in certain genera the neuration differs in the different species, and likewise in the two sexes of the same species.
Sir J. Lubbock has recently remarked, that several minute crustaceans offer excellent illustrations of this law.
"In Pontella, for instance, the sexual characters are afforded mainly by the anterior antennae and by the fifth pair of legs: the specific differences also are principally given by these organs."
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| crustacean |
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| Pontella |
This relation has a clear meaning on my view: I look at all the species of the same genus as having as certainly descended from a common progenitor, as have the two sexes of any one species.
Consequently, whatever part of the structure of the common progenitor, or of its early descendants, became variable, variations of this part would, it is highly probable, be taken advantage of by natural and sexual selection, in order to fit the several species to their several places in the economy of nature, and likewise to fit the two sexes of the same species to each other, or to fit the males to struggle with other males for the possession of the females.
