PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



sailor has himself seen them taking flight. 1 The male 

 linguatula is also smaller than the female, he has one 

 testicle but two long copulating organs which simultane- 

 ously penetrate the female, ejaculating toward the two 

 ovaries. Another small male is the hydrachne, water 

 acarian, two or three times smaller than the female, he 

 alone is provided with a tail at the end of which are his 

 genital organs; the female's are formed by a papilla situ- 

 ated beneath the belly and marked by a white patch sur- 

 rounding the sluice. The male swims, the female comes 

 to meet him, lifts herself obliquely and brings her white 

 spot into touch with her lover's caudal extremity, the 

 junction is accomplished. One then sees the male drag 

 along the kicking female; the coupling, with periods of 

 rest, but without interruption of profound contact con- 

 tinues for several days. 



With insects of superior talents it is, on the contrary, 

 the female who carries off the male: the ant carries hers 

 on her back, while he bends his abdomen into a bow 

 toward her vulva; thus weighted, she flies, mounts, 

 planes, then falls with him like a drop of water. He dies 

 on the spot, the female gets up, returns to the nest, lays, 

 before dying. The fetes of the ant are of the whole 

 ant hill at once, the fall of the lovers like a golden cas- 

 cade, and the resurrection of the females gleams in the 

 sun like a russet foam. The scutilary is an insect some- 

 times squarish or shield-shaped resembling the green 



1 The name of these cirripedes bears witness to this supersti- 

 tion: anatife is the abridgement of anatifere, duck- bearing, latin 

 anas, anatis. "A tree equally marvelous, is that which produces 

 barnacles, for the fruits of this tree change into birds." (Mande- 

 ville's Travels.) 



93 



