THE MASTER INSTINCT 



minute crimson stars of the nut-producing flowers 

 you will not see without close inspection. Thus do 

 sex characteristics run throughout organic nature. 

 Whitman speaks of the sexuality of the earth, hav- 

 ing in mind, no doubt, its fertility and the passive 

 feminine relation it sustains to the orbs above. 



Truly the breeding-instinct, with the whole train 

 of subsidiary instincts that go with it, is close to 

 Nature's heart, closer than the instinct of self- 

 preservation. Life is conserved only that it may 

 produce more life. In the insect world, certain forms 

 utterly exhaust themselves in the art of reproduc- 

 tion; others in the act of providing housing and food 

 for their unborn offspring. The May -fly develops 

 into winged liberty, experiences the love-festival, 

 deposits its eggs, when both sexes die, all within the 

 compass of a few hours. Of some species of thread- 

 worms it is said that "the young live at the expense 

 of the mother till she is reduced to a mere husk." 

 Fabre tells us of a species of dung-beetle the male of 

 which scours the fields for food for the young, which 

 he carries home and, with his trident, reduces to a 

 powder, till, after the labor of months, without 

 nourishment himself, he becomes utterly exhausted 

 and dies. 



In eating up her lover after he has served her pur- 

 pose, the female spider seems to be carrying domes- 

 tic economy to unwarranted lengths. Yet genera- 

 tion after generation of male spiders court the 

 79 



