PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



humanity, to consider only that, gives an excess of 

 males. The general average is about 105, with ex- 

 tremes of 1 01 in Russia, and 113 in Greece; the French 

 average is the same as the general average. One has 

 not been able to make out, in these variations, either in- 

 fluence of race, or of climate, or of taxes, or of national- 

 ity, or anything else in particular. There are more 

 male humans, more male sheep: it is a fact, which being 

 regular, will be difficult to explain. 



We find here superabundance, there penury of males, 

 but neither does the abundance determine the customs, 

 nor is it likely the lack of males would do so. There are 

 so few males among gnats that Fabre was the first to rec- 

 ognize them, the proportion about one male to ten females. 

 This in no way produces polygamy, for the male dies the 

 instant after coupling. Nine out of ten gnat females die 

 virgin, and even without having seen a male, without 

 knowing that males exist: perhaps celibacy augments 

 their ferocity, for it is the female gnat and she alone who 

 sucks our gore. One supposes also that female spiders 

 outnumber the males ten or twenty to one: perhaps the 

 buck who has escaped the jaws of one mistress has the 

 courage to risk his life yet again? It is possible, the male 

 spider who survives his amours may live on for several 

 years. Polygamy seems to exist, and in its most refined 

 form, with one sort of spider, the ctenize, whose males are 

 peculiarly rare. The female digs a nest in the earth, 

 into which the male descends; he lives there some time, 

 then he leaves, comes back: there are several houses 

 between which he divides his time equitably. 



The polygamy of a curious little fish, the stickleback, is 



