THE NATURAL 



there is a male supplementary parasite the separation 

 of the sexes leads, in principle, to dimorphism, the role 

 of the male, his modes of activity differ from those of the 

 female; a difference found also among dioic plants. 

 Hemp is a well known case, although the taller shoots 

 which the peasants call male are in exact contrary, the 

 females. The small garden-loving nettle has two sexes 

 on the same stalk; the greater nettle, found in unculti- 

 vated land, is dioic: the male stalk has very long flop- 

 ping leaves and flowers hanging along the stem; the 

 leaves and flowers of the female stalk are short and stand 

 almost upright. Here the dimorphism is not in favour 

 of the female, but impartial. 



Of insects the female is nearly always the superior 

 individual. It is not this marvellous small creature, 

 nature's divergent and minuscule king who offers us the 

 spectacle of the bilhargie, spearwort, whereof the female, 

 mediocre blade, lives, like a sword sheathed in the hollow 

 stomach of the male. This timid life and its perpetual 

 amours would horrify the bold female scarabcea, adroit 

 chalicodomes, cold wise lycoses, and proud, terrible, 

 amazonian mantes. In the insect world the male is the 

 frail elegant sex, gentle and sober, with no employment 

 save to please and to love. To the female the heavy 

 work of digging, of masonry, and the danger of hunt 

 and of war. 



There are exceptions, but found chiefly among para- 

 sites, among the degraded, like the xenos which lives 

 without distinction upon wasps, coleoptera, and nevrop- 

 tera. The male is provided with two large wings; the 

 female has neither wings, feet, eyes, nor antennae; is a 

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