248 NOTES ON MELICERTA RINGENS. 



his capacity, and that is precisely the kind of male with which she is 

 supplied. How she has obtained such a male, or, conversely, how such 

 a male has obtained such a female, are important but insufficiently 

 noticed elements in that great question of the day, which fills all our 

 thoughts. 



The whole subject of these apparently and so-called degraded malea 

 is here open before us, and it offers a wide field for observation and 

 reflection ; and the very first reflection that occurs to us is this, that, a 

 jniori, we have no more right to talk of degraded males than we have to 

 talk of exalted females. What we actually see before us is a male 

 exactly suited to the wants of the female, and able to provide her with the 

 only secretion in the world which will enable her to continue the race, and 

 vicevcrsa. The terrible nuptials of the Queen Bee, the dying sufferings of 

 the selected husband, the frightful slaughter of the rejected males, is a 

 story that gives rise to some painful thoughts — thoughts which the rotifer 

 world and its mouthless males at first sight seem sadly to confirm. For 

 if it be true that " degradation " can bring males to such a pass, why 

 then we see what a future may possibly be in store for other animals — 

 for animals which are now endowed with higher powers. The bees, 

 the ants, and the rotifers are not the only animals among whose 

 ranks the main body of females surpass, or have a tendency to surpass, 

 in self-restraint, intelligence, and industry, the main body of the males, 

 and if there be any substance in the suggestion that degradation is a part 

 of evolution, and that evolution is the principle by which "life changes" 

 and "life progress" are conducted, why, then, a hideous future may be 

 in store for some of the more highly-organised races ; when appetite becomes 

 the ruling force, it is developed at the expense of intelligence, and the 

 male must inevitably degi'ade,and must cither drag the female with him, 

 and so obliterate both, or sink below her in intellectual capacity. 



But here I must confess myself altogether a heretic, and for 

 my own part I beheve that, so far as the question before us goes, 

 neither degradation nor evolution had anything to do with the present 

 state of the bee or the rotifer world. I am of the mind of Falconbridge 

 as to his parentage. "Evolution could do well," but it could not get 

 a suitable male for a female without the aid of an outer independent 

 and far higher principle than that which is involved in the word develop- 

 ment. To me the male rotifer is what it is, that is to say, a diminutive 

 spermatic bag, simply because it was of the utmost importance to the 

 race that the male should have one object in life, and only one, and that 

 it should not waste time in seeking and devouring food in an hour when 

 the continuance of the race requires that it should be engaged 

 otherwise. The "replenishment" of the earth, the multiplication 

 of stock, runs like a marvellous thread of exquisite and infinitely 

 varied contrivance through the whole scries of living beings, and tho 

 microscope greatly intensifies tho marvel. The difficulties which lie 

 in the way of treating, without offence, this subject of male and female 

 has made it popularly a neglected topic, and thus the world at large 

 has missed the strongest ai-gument which, to my mind, there is against 



