I 9 2 ANIMAL LIFE 



food, but dances with his fellows, shaking a loose leg 

 over the ground where his partner is hard at work. In 

 such style the male gnats drift over the countryside 

 in short outbursts of marvellous activity, whilst the 

 females alone seek to bite us, haunt our water-butts, 

 and roost in the outhouse. So the male ant and 

 bee drone is but an annual incident in the life of the 

 queen, and almost the whole life of wasps is one of 

 joyful widowhood. Why should such bounty be 

 showered on the drone if it is only to endure for an 

 instant in his mate's sight ? Why should he be spared 

 the duty of rinding food when her whole life is given 

 to dispensing it ? 



The answer we can now give is a strange one. 



The foolishness of the male is the wisdom of the 

 race, and his ardours, seemingly so self-centred, are 

 an assurance of a test survived and of promised pre- 

 eminence. Disguise the fact as he may, he still is 

 responding to the utmost of his powers to secure the 

 fittest offspring, though with the momentum that 

 is put into the decisive acts of life he is carried past 

 the point of utilitarian necessity in a short outburst 

 of exuberance, as if to conceal the test he has passed. 



The most general ordeal is the old courtly tourney ; 

 that is, the males do battle in view of those whose 

 favour they strive to win. 



With spiders, for instance, the court is held in 

 summer, when the suitors are in their brightest and 

 most vigorous mood. The rivals, after eyeing each 

 other, and then closing in what appears a mortal 



