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This paper describes a type of fitness indicating trait which is particularly likely to be exaggerated because of sexual selection on fitness-faking modifier genes, describes the selection process which tends to exaggerate such traits, and indicates by citing examples from different taxa the wide range of traits which can be explained as resulting from this type of selection.

The rarity of Malthusian overexploitation has long puzzled naturalists. Nicholson has given an important proximate explanation of how population size is limited, but his discussion of density governing traits does not tackle the ultimate question of how populations acquired these traits which prevent overexploitation. This paper shows that Darwinian theory can explain the evolution of density governing limitation mechanisms which prevent overexploitation; they are a predictable by-product of selection for adaptation to the early growth phase of a population with recurrent population crashes. In this situation Darwinian selection, instead of maximizing the number of offspring of the ultimately favored allele, maximizes the number of its descendants in the comparable portion of the next growth cycle.