The Meaning of Evolution

by Samuel Christian Schmucker

The great difficulty in understanding sexual attraction in insects, as based upon beauty, lies in the undoubtedly lower development of their nervous activity; in other words, in the apparent absence of anything worth calling mind. I think no one imagines that a butterfly, looking upon two other butterflies who are competing for her affections, deliberates between them and determines to admit to the circle of her friendship the more brilliantly colored male. Moths are so irresistibly attracted to a light as to fly into it without apparent power to withstand its influence. They repeat the flight again and again until they are destroyed. If they react so vigorously to the stimulus of the light, it seems not impossible that they may also act vigorously to the stimulus of color pattern, and that the male most beautifully colored, according to the nervous ideal of the female, should win her unconscious regard. At least it is certain that, in very many of the butterflies and moths, the attractive coloration is chiefly displayed when they are moving actively about; and when they alight and their enemies can the more easily capture them, they conceal their brilliant colorings. Most butterflies are very brilliant on the upper surface of the wings and very much duller on the under surface. Hence in flight they show their colorings exquisitely, but when they alight, and are thus more likely to be captured, they fold the brilliant surfaces together in an upright position. In this way not only is the dull side of the wings placed outward, but the wings themselves are placed edgewise to the sky, and it is from this direction that their enemies, the birds, are most likely to see them. Once upon the wing these creatures display their beauty with much greater safety because they can escape the birds very readily by use of their exceedingly jerky flight. The butterfly's motion is as irregular as any we have except the bat's. This eccentricity is one great element in their safety, and makes it less dangerous for them to display their attractive colorations.

One very large group of the night-flying moths have been named the "underwings," because of the fact that their hind wings are very much more brilliant than the front, and in lighting they fold the dull pair back over the bright, completely concealing them. These creatures are in the habit of resting in the daytime against walls, or stones, or the bark of trees. The similarity in color between their front wings, which alone show while sitting, and the background on which they rest, is most remarkable. One may pass them again and again, although they are of considerable size, and not notice them at all. Once let them display their hind wings and the brilliancy of their color always attracts immediate attention.

It is among birds, however, that brilliant coloration serves its most effective purpose. The birds are alert, exceedingly quick of sight, and are much more discriminating than insects in almost every respect. It is not so impossible that these creatures might even voluntarily prefer a distinctly more brilliant mate, though the voluntary character of the process is not essential to its success. Men certainly are constantly attracted to women for whose charm it would puzzle them to account. If this is true with regard to men, it is certainly probable that birds would be largely influenced by phases of attractiveness, of which they were observant, but unconscious.

Certain it is that in many birds the males are far more beautiful than the females. Perhaps the commonest illustration, and, at the same time, one of the best is found in the so-called red-wing or swamp blackbird. The male of this creature is a brilliant black, excepting that upon the angle of the wing, spoken of roughly as his shoulder, though in reality it is equivalent to our wrist, there appears a splendid orange patch with a border of lemon yellow. When he folds his wing he pushes this colored angle of the wing so deftly under the feathers of his shoulder as almost to conceal it. When in flight the bird is exceedingly conspicuous, showing, with every bend and twist of his body, his gorgeous epaulets. Meanwhile, the female is likely to pass unnoticed. She is dull in color and streaked like the grass among which she lives. During the mating season the male hovers about her, swaying from side to side in such a way as certainly to make it appear as if he realized his good points and was bringing them to bear as effectively as he knew how. After his mate has nested and is rearing her young, it would appear that the male uses his brilliancy to lure the observing enemy away from the nest containing his wife and children.

Another illustration of the remarkable superiority of the male over the female, in many parts of the bird world, is seen in the case of the common barnyard fowl. The rooster is so much more gorgeous than the hen that anyone reasonably acquainted with these birds cannot have failed to notice the fact. In some of our modern varieties we have by breeding colored them nearly alike. The original chicken is colored much like the common Leghorns. Shades of red and yellow decorate his neck and back, while the flight feathers of his wings and of his tail and the sickle feathers which ornament the rear of his back and hang over his tail are lustrous dark green. The hen meanwhile is very much less brilliant in her contrasts. I shall speak more fully of this in discussing polygamy.

The attraction of beauty is not the only lure by which a creature may win its mate. Sound may captivate as effectively as beauty. This is true of insects as well as of birds. Certain insects at least advise their mates of their presence by means of a sound which they emit. This is particularly noticeable among the group of straight-winged insects to which the grasshopper, katydid and cricket belong. The grasshopper has a ridge on the angle of his wing and a roughness on the side of his leg. When these two are rubbed together the result is sometimes a fiddling, sometimes a snapping or cracking sound, differing in different grasshoppers. I doubt not these sounds are pleasing to the female of the species, for they are always made by the male. The katydid, instead of fiddling in this way, has a sort of drum on the angle of his one wing, which he can rub over a tooth in the corresponding angle of his other wing, thus producing the familiar "katydid" sound. I have never succeeded in making a dead grasshopper fiddle, but I have long known how to make a dead katydid say "ka." Quite recently I have added to my accomplishment in this respect and can make it say "katy." The "did" part of the song still lies beyond my power. The crickets produce their sharp notes in much the same fashion as the katydids.

One observer of the chirping of the cricket says that the pitch of the song varies with the temperature. He has even worked out a formula by which one can tell the pitch of the chirp, if he knows the temperature, or, knowing the temperature, can determine the pitch. Of course this is too mechanical; yet it indicates that there must be considerable relation between the two; the warmer the cricket the happier he is.

It is the males among insects that chirp their love songs. The females never answer them. There is a peculiar notion that the female katydid, when thus accused of some offense, replies "katy didn't." The truth of the matter is that no female katydid ever replied to the accusations of her lover, if accusation it be. She is absolutely dumb, not having the drum upon her wings with which to reply. She is provided with ears wherewith to hear, and, strange to say, she keeps them on her elbow, as does also the cricket, while the grasshopper has his ears upon the side of his body.

Everyone who lives in the country, or goes into the country in the summertime, is sure to know the humming of the so-called locust. It is an unfortunate fact that the word locust may have several meanings. It is properly applied to one group of the grasshoppers. The creature most commonly called a locust is a cicada, or harvest fly. When the weather gets quite warm the cicada starts his love song. He has two long flaps to his vest, and under each flap he has a vibrating drum head. This is set shivering by a muscle on its under side. The female cicada again is silent.

It is among birds that the love song reaches its finest development. It may consist simply of a little chirp as in the chippy. It may consist of two notes of a different pitch repeated steadily, as in the tufted titmouse. It may attain considerable variation, as in the robin. But in the choir of our best singers, like the catbird, thrasher, and mocking bird, there is unending variation of notes. It seems almost impossible to doubt the charming quality of this voice upon the mate. It certainly is chiefly confined to the mating season, and is indulged in almost entirely by the males. This does not mean that a male does not sing excepting when he wishes to charm his mate. But the time when he is in his most exquisite feather and most charming mood is the time when he sings most sweetly, and this is the time when he is taking to himself a mate. The love joy may so overcrowd his life that he sings much and often, but the increase in its amount and character during the mating season seems to proclaim its purpose beyond a doubt.