males, "she is immediately pressed closely by a male on each side; and when they have been in that situation for a time, are superseded by other two males."[1]
INSECTS.
In this great Class, the Lepidoptera almost alone affords means for judging of the proportional numbers of the sexes; for they have been collected with special care by many good observers, and have been largely bred from the egg or caterpillar state. I had hoped that some breeders of silk-moths might have kept an exact record, but after writing to France and Italy, and consulting various treatises, I cannot find that this has ever been done. The general opinion appears to be that the sexes are nearly equal, but in Italy, as I hear from Professor Canestrini, many breeders are convinced that the females are produced in excess. This same naturalist, however, informs me, that in the two yearly broods of the Ailanthus silk-moth (Bombyx cynthia), the males greatly preponderate in the first, whilst in the second the two sexes are nearly equal, or the females rather in excess.
In regard to butterflies in a state of nature, several observers have been much struck by the apparently enormous preponderance of the males.[2] Thus Mr. Bates,[3] in speaking of several species, about a hundred in number, which inhabit the Upper Amazons, says that the males are much more numerous than the females, even in the proportion of a hundred to one. In North America, Edwards, who had great experience, estimates in the genus Papilio the males to the females as four to one; and Mr. Walsh, who informs me of this statement, says that with P. turnus this is certainly the case. In South Africa, Mr. R. Trimen found the males in excess in 19 species;[4] and in one of these, which swarms in open places, he estimated the number of males as fifty to one female. With another species, in which the males are numerous in certain localities, he collected only five females during seven years. In the island of Bourbon, M. Maillard states that the males of one species of Papilio are twenty times as numerous as the females.[5] Mr. Trimen informs me that as far as he has himself seen, or heard from others, it is rare for the females of any butterfly to exceed the males in number; but three South African species perhaps offer an exception. Mr. Wallace[6] states that the females of Ornithoptera crœsus, in the Malay Archipelago, are more common and more easily caught than the males; but this is a rare butterfly. I may- ↑ Yarrell, 'Hist. British Fishes', vol. i. 1826, p. 307; on the Cyprinus carpio, p. 331; on the Tinca vulgaris, p. 331; on the Abramis brama, p. 336. See, for the minnow (Leuciscus phoxinus), 'Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist.' vol. v. 1832, p. 682.
- ↑ Leuckart quotes Meinecke (Wagner, 'Handwörterbuch der Phys.' B. iv. 1853, s. 775) that the males of butterflies are three or four times as numerous as the females.
- ↑ 'The Naturalist on the Amazons,' vol. ii. 1863, p. 228, 347.
- ↑ Four of these cases are given by Mr. Trimen in his 'Rhopalocera Africæ Australis'.
- ↑ Quoted by Trimen, 'Transact. Ent. Soc.' vol. v. part iv. 1866, p. 330.
- ↑ 'Transact. Linn. Soc.' vol. xxv. p. 37.
