THE NATURAL 



a real role, or for an emergency milking. 1 This replace- 

 ment has been too rarely observed for one to use it as a 

 basis of argument. Embryology gives a good explana- 

 tion of the existence of this useless organ. An useless 

 instrument is, moreover, quite as frequent in nature as 

 the absence of a useful instrument. Perfect concordance 

 of organ and act is rare. In the case of insects who live 

 but for one love-season, sometimes for two real seasons 

 if they can benumb themselves for the winter, polygamy 

 is nearly always the consequence of the rarity of males, 

 or the superabundance of females. Space is too vast, 

 their food too abundant for there to be truly deadly 

 combats between males. Moreover, their love accom- 

 plished, the minuscule folk ask only to die, the couple 

 is formed only for the actual time of fecundation, the 

 two animals at once resume their liberty, that is for 

 the female to deliver her eggs, and for the male to 

 languish, and sometimes to cast a final song to the 

 winds. There are exceptions to this rule, but if one 

 looks upon the exceptions with the same gaze as on the 

 rule, one would see in nature only what one sees on 

 the surface of a river, vague movements and passing 

 shadows. To conceive some reality, one must con- 

 ceive a rule, first, as an instrument of vision and of 

 measure. With most insects the male does nothing 

 but live; he deposits his seed in the female receptacle, 

 flies on, vanishes. He does not share any of the labours 

 preparatory to laying. Alone the female sphex engages 

 1 One believes nevertheless that the male bat suckles one of 

 the two young that the couple regularly produces. But these 

 animals are so odd and so heteroclite that this example, if it is 

 authentic, would not be a decisive argument. 

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