50 SEX 



the other, leading, primarily or ultimately, 

 to the liberation of the sex-elements. When 

 this is the case, fertilisation is more likely to 

 be secured. As an example of this still very 

 lowly plane of sex-attraction, where there is 

 no sexual union, but where proximity or 

 contact is the liberating stimulus provoking 

 a discharge of germ-cells, we may take the 

 familiar case of the salmon,. The female fish 

 makes a furrow in the gravelly bed of the 

 river and lays her eggs there; the attendant 

 male is stimulated by the presence of the 

 ripe female and by the presence of the eggs 

 to liberate the sperms or milt upon them. 

 No doubt many of the thousands of sperms 

 are lost forthwith, but what occurs is an 

 improvement upon the primitive and wasteful 

 broadcast semination of the waters. 



It remains, however, certain that in the 

 lower reaches of the animal kingdom where 

 no sex-behaviour exists, the fertilisation of 

 the eggs is more or less haphazard. This 

 involves the production of large numbers of 

 ova and huge numbers of sperms, which we 

 interpret as implying : (1) that simple organ- 

 isms are naturally very prolific, and (2) that 

 a survival bonus was persistently awarded to 

 those members of a species that were constitu- 

 tionally most prolific. The constitutionally 

 prolific survived, while the constitutionally 

 non-prolific would tend to be eliminated. 



We would dwell for a moment upon this 

 necessarily great productivity of germ-cells 

 on the part of simple animals, because it 

 seems to us that it became a widespread 

 constitutional characteristic in many lines of 



