The Descent of Man

loured, by the selection of successive variations,
which were from the first limited in their transmission
to the same sex. Whether the females of
many species have actually been thus modified,
must at present remain doubtful. When,
through the law of the equal transmission of
characters to both sexes, the females were rendered
as conspicuously coloured as the males,
their instincts appear often to have been modified
so that they were led to build domed or
concealed nests.
In one small and curious class of cases the characters
and habits of the two sexes have been
completely transposed, for the females are larger,
stronger, more vociferous and brighter
coloured than the males. They have, also, become
so quarrelsome that they often fight together
for the possession of the males, like the
males of other pugnacious species for the possession
of the females. If, as seems probable,
such females habitually drive away their rivals,