Note 49 — Chapter X · The Theory of Sexual Selection, and Concluding Remarks.

Since the above exposition of the theory of sexual selection was written, Mr. Poulton has published his work on the Colours of Animals. He there reproduces some of the illustrations which occur in Mr. and Mrs. Peckham’s work on Sexual Selection in Spiders, and furnishes appropriate descriptions. Therefore, while retaining the illustrations, I have withdrawn my own descriptions.

Mr. Poulton has also in his book supplied a résumé of the arguments for and against the theory of sexual selection in general. Of course in nearly all respects this corresponds with the résumé which is given in the foregoing pages; but I have left the latter as it was originally written, because all the critical part is reproduced verbatim from a review of Mr. Wallace’s Darwinism, of a date still earlier than that of Mr. Poulton’s book—viz. Contemporary Review, August, 1889.