PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



in her terrible and clever strife with the cricket, whom 

 she paralyzes with three stabs of her dagger in his 

 three moto-nervous centres; alone she hollows the oblique 

 burrow at the bottom of which live her larvae; alone 

 she adorns it, fills it with provisions, closes it. Alone 

 the female cerceris heaps up in the deep gallery the 

 stunned weevils and burn-cows, fruit of her excava- 

 tions, larder for her progeny. Alone the she-osmie, she- 

 wasp, she-philanthe one would have to cite nearly all 

 the hymenoptera. One understands better, when the 

 insect deposits her eggs by chance, without prefatory 

 manoeuvres, or by special instruments, that the male 

 co-operation is lacking; only the female cicada can sink 

 her clever burrow in the olive bark. 



There are however couples among insects. Among 

 coleoptera there are the "purse-maker," the necrophore. 

 Stercorian geotrupes, lunar copris, onitis bison, sisyphus, 

 work soberly side by side preparing the larder for their 

 coming families. In these cases, the male seems master, 

 he directs the manoeuvres in the complicated operations 

 of the necrophores. A couple get busy about a corpse, 

 say of a field mouse; nearly always one or two isolated 

 males join them, the troop is organized, one sees the 

 chief engineer explore the territory and give orders. 

 The female awaits them, motionless, ready to obey, to 

 follow the movement. As soon as there is a couple the 

 male necrophore commands. The male assists the female 

 during the work of arranging the cell and the laying. 

 Most purse-makers, sisyphus or copris make and trans- 

 port together the pill which serves as food for the larvae; 

 their couple is just like that of birds. One might be- 

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