CHAPTER XIII 



SOME STRANGE MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS I AND VIRGIN BIRTHS 



The Courtship of the Cuttle-fish — The Sumptuous Cradle of the 

 Argonaut — The Love-darts of the Snail — Hermaphrodites and 

 the Dangers of Self-fertilization — Oysters and Beauty — Sex 

 reduced to its Lowest Terms — Parthenogenesis and Virgin 

 Birth — The Story of the Hive-bee — The Departure of the 

 Queen — The New Queen and her Marriage-flight — The Cele- 

 bration of the Nuptials and its Surprising Sequel — The Widowed 

 Queen turns Executioner — The Queen as Mother — The Queen's 

 Daughters — Nursemaids' Duties — Change of Work — The Drones 

 and their Career — Food and ^Sex — The Bumble-bee and its 

 Life-story. 



That the psychical emotions sway the goad of sexual 

 instincts in the higher animals there can be no doubt ; 

 and there can be as little uncertainty that this stimulating 

 and controlling factor gradually loses force as we descend 

 in the scale of animal life. Just where it ceases it is 

 impossible to say. A vague, nebulous intelligence doubt- 

 less persists after these more subtle emotions have ceased, 

 and this, probably, in turn, gives place to purely in- 

 stinctive behaviour. These various phases of the sexual 

 problem grade one into the other. But they are all parts 

 of a continuous sequence, beginning, apparently, in 

 relatively simple responses to chemical interactions of the 

 kind known as chemotaxis and ending with the passion 



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