CHAPTER XIV 



PARTHENOGENESIS AND ITS SEQUEL 



Courtship among the Ants — ^The Grea ': Renunciation — Maternity 

 carried to Extremes — Where Males are Superfluous — Degenerate 

 Males — Keeping Death at Bay — Where Females are Unknown. 



The phenomenon of virgin birth is one of profound 

 mystery. The existence of so astonishing a mode of 

 reproduction was an established belief among the 

 ancients, though they could have had no means of 

 demonstrating the faith that was in them. But these 

 men saw no difficulty in ascribing to the females of their 

 own race this faculty of producing offspring without the 

 intervention of a male. One suspects, indeed, that there 

 was no solid foundation whatever for this belief in these 

 miraculous powers : they lived in credulous times, and 

 the recorded occurrences of these, even to them, irregular 

 births are to be regarded as devised to afford a con- 

 venient means of escape from the consequences of lapses 

 from the path of virtue. Yet, incredible as it may 

 appear, there are not wanting to-day both men and 

 women who affect to believe that this mode of repro- 

 duction obtains still among the human race, in certain 

 exceptional cases ; and further, they profess a conviction 



296 



