THE EVOLUTION OF A MOTHER. 273 



made, as it were, in four processes. She requires, like 

 the making of a colored picture, four separate paint- 

 ings, each adding some new thing to the effect. Let 

 us note the way in which woman — savage woman — ■ 

 became caretaker, and watcher, and nurse, and passed 

 from femaleness to the higher heights of Mother- 

 hood, 



The first great change that had to be introduced 

 into Nature was the diminishing of the number of 

 young produced at a birth. As we have seen, nearly 

 all the lower animals produce scores, or hundreds, or 

 thousands, or -millions, at one time. Now, no mother 

 can love a million. Clearly, if Nature wishes to make 

 caretakers, she must moderate her demands. And so 

 she sets to work to bring down the numbers, reducing 

 them steadily until so few remain that Motherhood 

 becomes a possibility. How great this change is can 

 only be understood when one realizes the almost in- 

 calculable fecundity of the first-created forms of life. 

 When we exam :ie the progeny of the lowest plants 

 we find ourselves among figures so high that no mi- 

 croscope can count them. The Protococcus Nivalis 

 shows its exuberant reproductive power by reddening 

 the Arctic landscape with its offspring in a single 

 night. When we break or shake the Puff-ball of the 

 well-known fungus, the cloud of progeny darkens the 

 air with a smoke made up of uncountable millions of 

 spores. Hydatina /Senta, one of the Rotifera, propa- 

 gates four times in thirty-four hours, and in twelve 

 days is the parent of sixteen million young. Among 

 fish the number is still very great. The herring and 

 the cod give birth to a million ova, the frog spawns 

 eggs by the thousand, and most of the creatures a+. 

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