THE NATURAL 



One would say that at this point they should have used 

 another sense, perhaps sight, despite their being cre- 

 puscular creatures, or that the cage bothered them. Per- 

 haps also it is the custom for the female to come and 

 play before them? It is, in any case, evident that sense 

 of smell plays an important role; the mystery would not 

 be less great if one supposed the bringing into play of 

 a special sense, that of sexual orientation. Fabre has 

 obtained equal success with the female of a very rare but- 

 terfly, the oak bombyx, or banded minime: in one morn- 

 ing sixty males arrived, turning about the prisoner. One 

 has observed analogous if not identical things in certain 

 serpents, in mammifera: everyone has seen dogs in the 

 country, drawn by a female in heat, coming from a con- 

 siderable distance, nearly a league, without one's being 

 able to say how their organism had got the news. 



Explanations are vain in these matters. They divert 

 the curiosity without satisfying the reason. What one 

 sees clearly is a necessity: the act must be accomplished, 

 to this end, all obstacles, whatever they are, will be 

 overcome. Neither distance, nor the difficulty of the 

 voyage, nor the danger of the approach can drive back 

 the instinct. In man, who has sometimes the power to 

 escape the sexual commandments, disobedience may have 

 happy results. Chastity, as a transmuter, may change 

 unused sexual energy into intellectual or social energy; in 

 animals this transmutation of physical values is impos- 

 sible. The compass needle remains in one immutable 

 position, obedience is unescapable. That is why there is 

 so deep a rumble in nature when the spring orders are 

 posted. Vegetable flowers are not the only ones to open: 

 138 



