REPRODUCTION AND SEX 551 



in which she deposits her eggs, working hard to capture suitable 

 insect booty, which is then skilfully paralysed so that it remains 

 fresh meat for the future larva?, she cannot be credited with much 

 feeling, for she never survives to see her hatched offspring. Her 

 ancestors may have had this experience, but that must have been 

 long ago. The whole routine has passed under the rule of instinct, 

 and the exacting tyranny of this in the case of the Sphex wasp has 

 been well illustrated by Fabre's famous experiments. 



It seems reasonable to suggest that awareness of the offspring 

 and enjoyment of their presence cannot be more than hinted at until 

 the nervous system has attained a considerable degree of complexity, 

 and until the offspring are nurtured by and sojourn with the parent 

 for a considerable time. Only then is there a distinct sounding of 

 the emotional note. 



The instinctive basis of much of the parental carefulness of animals 

 must be kept in mind even at the highest levels, for this unreasoning 

 basis, on which intelligence may proceed to build, helps to explain 

 some of the curious puzzles, so often provocative of misunderstanding 

 on the naturalist's part. Hamerton tells of a bereaved cow which 

 would not feed and would not be milked, and was like to die. So the 

 farmer stuffed the calf's skin with hay and set it up before the 

 mother, who recognised the smell, was comforted, licked the skin 

 repeatedly, and began to mend. As she continued licking, she wore 

 a hole in the calf's skin, and went on complacently to eat the hay! 



Now we misunderstand the situation if we are led by this tale to 

 depreciate either the cow's intelligence or its parental emotion, both 

 of which are strongly developed. The smell and the touch of the 

 faked calf served as a "liberating stimulus" towards health, and 

 there was probably an associated emotional tonic. But the touch 

 and taste of the hay liberated another instinct, and the cow ate 

 contentedly, untroubled by any desire or need for a consistently 

 unified experience. Animals seldom worry over discrepancies; that 

 is man's affair. 



Some of the grades of parental care may be mentioned, the 

 proviso being understood that at the lower levels the behaviour is 

 little more than an expression of the physiological arrangements 

 embodied in the animal's constitution. A dogfish automatically 

 produces in its oviduct an elegant mermaid's purse, whose tendrils 

 twine automatically around seaweed or zoophytes, and thus save 

 the developing embryo from injury. But there is no reason to suppose 

 that the dogfish is more aware of the adaptive arrangement than a 

 plant is aware of the equipment of its seeds with some structure that 

 secures their dissemination. 



(i) The eggs and developing offspring may be carried about in 

 various ways by the parent, e.g. in a brood-chamber in many small 

 crustaceans, or on the surface of the body, as in the brook-leech. 



