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"But look, Miss Linton Miss Sinclair, isn't it curious?" The lad's cheeks flushed, and his eyes sparkled with delight, as he held up by the line what seemed to be a good-sized fish, of five or six pounds' weight, with a very long brilliantly-coloured eel twined tightly round and round it, in a perfect spiral, several feet in length.
Invariably, Nick received them in his shirt-sleeves, for that matter he was the proud possessor of the sole "biled shirt" in the camp, and what with his red flannel undershirt that extended far below the line of his cuffs, his brilliantly-coloured waistcoat and tie, and his hair combed down very low in a cow-lick over his forehead, he was indeed an odd little figure of a man as he listened patiently to the boys' grievances and doled out sympathy to them.
Brilliantly-coloured birds were shot and skinned: and an ample supply of fine turkey-like fellows made the men's eyes sparkle as they thought of the rich roasts Dan would make at the evening's camping-place to supplement the toothsome fish that were hauled in, flashing gold, silver, blue, and scarlet from their scales, whenever a line was thrown out astern.
Under the perfumed shade of these magnificent trees sang and fluttered a world of brilliantly-coloured birds, amongst which the crab-eater deserved a jewel casket, worthy of its feathered gems, for a nest. J.T. Maston and the major could not pass through such opulent nature without admiring its splendid beauty.
At twelve fifteen they were an inch and a quarter. At half-past twelve they were two inches. At twelve forty-five they were two and a half; and at one o'clock they were three inches. To see those large brilliantly-coloured wings droop, widen, and develop their markings, seemed little short of a miracle. The history of the following days is painful.
They would alight upon their tentacles, fold their wings to a smallness almost rod-like, and hop into the interior. But among them was a multitude of smaller-winged creatures, like great dragon-flies and moths and flying beetles, and across the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic ground-beetles crawled lazily to and fro.
"How attractively and in what brilliantly-coloured outlines do you present the various facts of existence!" exclaimed Chou-hu, with inelegant resentment.
On the whole, although many serious objections may be urged, it seems probable that most of the brilliantly-coloured species of Lepidoptera owe their colours to sexual selection, excepting in certain cases, presently to be mentioned, in which conspicuous colours have been gained through mimicry as a protection.
She had no brilliantly-coloured sweets; no sticks veined with blue, green, yellow, and red upon pure white ground; no crystallised drops, or those of clear rose-colour, for all her "suckers," as they were called in the neighbourhood, were home-made, and she used to show all her customers the golden bright brass pan which hung upon the wall by the fire, as the one in which all her succulent sweets were made.
Finally, as we have seen, various considerations lead to the conclusion that with the greater number of brilliantly-coloured Lepidoptera it is the male which has been chiefly modified through sexual selection; the amount of difference between the sexes mostly depending on the form of inheritance which has prevailed.
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