searching for some cause for this singular apparent exception to the rule of female protective colouring, I came upon a fact which beautifully explains it; for in all these cases, without exception, the species either nests in holes in the ground or in trees, or builds a domed or covered nest, so as completely to conceal the sitting-bird. We have here a case exactly parallel to that of the butterflies protected by distastefulness, whose females are either exactly like the males, or, if different, are equally conspicuous. We can hardly believe that so exact a parallel should exist between such remote classes of animals, except under the influence of a general law; and, in the need of protection by all defenceless animals, and especially by most female insects and birds, we have such a law, which has been proved to have influenced the colours of a considerable proportion of the animal kingdom.[1]
The general relation which exists between the mode of nesting and the coloration of the sexes in those groups of birds which need protection from enemies, may be thus expressed: When both sexes are brilliant or conspicuous, the nest is such as to conceal the sitting-bird; but when the male is brightly coloured and the female sits exposed on the nest, she is always less brilliant and generally of quite sober and protective hues.
It must be understood that the mode of nesting has influenced the colour, not that the colour has determined the mode of nesting; and this, I believe, has been generally, though not perhaps universally, the case. For we know that colour varies more rapidly, and can be more easily modified and fixed by selection, than any other character; whereas habits, especially when connected with structure, and when they pervade a whole group, are much more persistent and more difficult to change, as shown by the habit of the dog turning round two or three times before lying down, believed to be that of the wild ancestral form which thus smoothed down the herbage so as to form a comfortable bed. We see, too, that the general mode of nesting is characteristic of whole families differing widely in size, form, and colours. Thus, all the kingfishers and their allies in every part of the world nest
- ↑ See the author's Contributions to Natural Selection, chap. vii. in which these facts were first brought forward.
