Natural selection, as we have seen in our earlier chapters,
acts perpetually and on an enormous scale in weeding out the "unfit" at
every stage of existence, and preserving only those which are in all
respects the very best. Each year, only a small percentage of young
birds survive to take the place of the old birds which die; and the
survivors will be those which are best able to maintain existence from
the egg onwards, an important factor being that their parents should be
well able to feed and protect them, while they themselves must in turn
be equally able to feed and protect their own offspring. Now this
extremely rigid action of natural selection must render any attempt to
select mere ornament utterly nugatory, unless the most ornamented always
coincide with "the fittest" in every other respect; while, if they do so
coincide, then any selection of ornament is altogether superfluous. If
the most brightly coloured and fullest plumaged males are _not_ the most
healthy and vigorous, have _not_ the best instincts for the proper
construction and concealment of the nest, and for the care and
protection of the young, they are certainly not the fittest, and will
not survive, or be the parents of survivors.
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