I50 



ANDREWS. 



parasitic upon the mother generation, — as a free perpetuation 

 machine, and for the sperm (which does not truly belong to 

 the male) and for specific environment for its future develop- 

 ment and life. As stated in a preceding section, the male 

 element is largely dependent always upon the female for its 

 specific environment. Other points of extreme interest in con- 

 nection with the male rotifers are these. They are formed of 

 eggs about one sixth only the bulk of ordinary parthenogenetic 

 eggs producing females ; they are produced about six times as 

 fast ; they are formed at times when the supply of food is 

 threatened by climatic changes and when the parent organisms 

 need all their reserve stores for formation of the huge winter 

 Q^g which is fully six times the bulk of the usual summer ^gg. 

 The male does not even diminish the possible food supply for 

 the parents since it does not, so far as known, ingest. All 

 these facts seem to me to make clearer the true relation of 

 organisms to the race history of the substance, and of ecto- 

 sarcal areas to substance habit. The facts were personally 

 observed in a number of forms but most continuously and 

 repeatedly studied for a number of years in Megalotrocha alba 

 and M. sp. ig. 



[147] An enormous proportion of the habits and instincts 

 of the whole living kingdom exist in relation to fosterhood 

 phenomena, especially with regard to the perpetuation areas. 

 Among the lower forms are many which retain for variably 

 long periods, or always, vital protoplasmic connection with their 

 fosterling areas even after these are manifestly self supporting. 

 Now just as, by qualitative extension or intensification of the 

 irritability of the living substance, more primary organs of gross 

 and direct contact found in lower forms are transformed among 

 the higher animals into space-bridging organs of sense percep- 

 tion ; so here again the same phenomenon of transmutation of 

 structure and function is repeated. Long after actual space 

 and time separation the parent can thus extend recognition and 

 assistance to its fosterling substance and still continue to subsi- 

 dize its own supplies or functions. 



