DARWIN Charles The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Second edition, revised and augmented. Fifteenth thousand.

Freeman, F-955.

Important second, revised and augmented edition. Pages VI to IX contain the list of “principal additions and corrections to the present edition”.

“In Descent, Darwin details a theory that he calls “sexual selection”— the idea that, in many species, males battle other males for access to females, while in other species females choose the biggest or most attractive males to bond with. The male-combat theory would explain, for example, the development of a bull’s horns, or a moose’s antlers, while the quintessential example of “female choice” is seen in peahens, which, Darwin argued, prefer to mate with peacocks having the biggest, most colorful tails. For Darwin, sexual selection was just as important as natural selection, which he had outlined in Origin — the idea that organisms with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce, thus passing on those traits to their offspring. Both mechanisms helped to explain how species evolved over time” (David Falk, in Smithsonian Magazine).

A very good copy.

Provenance : H. D. Evans 11 Apr. ’83 (signed purchase note on the title).