PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



is nevertheless very close; it is unknown to most fish, 

 whose amours are without even contact. Certain sela- 

 cians however (dogfish, skates), and perhaps also one or 

 two teleostians (bony fish), and the lamprey, have a 

 copulating organ which really enters the organ of the 

 female. 



The birds which have a penis or an erectile and re- 

 tractile tubercle which serves, are the ostrich, the casso- 

 wary, the duck, the swan, the goose, the bustard, the 

 mandou and certain neighbouring species; their hens 

 have a clitoridian organ. The ostrich has a true prong, 

 five or six inches in length, cut by a groove which serves 

 as conduit for the seminal liquor; it is enormous in erec- 

 tion and tongue-shaped. The ostrich hen has a clitoris 

 and coition occurs exactly as among mammals. The swan 

 and duck are also very well provided with an erectile 

 tubercle suited for copulation, and this explains at once 

 the story of Leda, the libidinous reputation of the duck, 

 and his exploits in the barn-yards, veritable abbeys of 

 Theleme. 



One can not here describe the copulative organs of 

 arthropodes, comprising insects properly so-called. 

 Enough to note that, however varied their forms, they 

 behave very much as those of superior mammifers and 

 are composed of two essential parts, the penis, sheathed 

 in a penial scabbard, and the vagina, prolonged by the 

 copulative pouch which receives the penis. Fish and 

 birds, lacking external apparatus are reduced to methods 

 which will be later examined. Hermaphrodite mollusks, 

 with a marvellously complicated sexual apparatus, ought 

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