PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



has no secondary intentions, she keeps watch that, tem- 

 porary or durable, fugitive or permanent the couples are 

 fecund; that is all. 



Gallinaceae and web-feet present certain birds best 

 known and most useful to us. They are nearly all poly- 

 gamous. The cock needs about a dozen hens, he can do 

 with a much larger number, but in that case his ardour 

 wears itself out. The duck, very licentious, is accused 

 of sodomy. Not only is he polygamous, but anything 

 will serve him. He might better be a natural example of 

 promiscuity. A gander is good for ten or twelve geese, 

 the cock-pheasant for eight or ten hens. The lyrure 

 tetras needs many more, he leads a sultan's harem be- 

 hind him. At dawn, in the season of amours, the male 

 starts whistling with a noise like steel on a grindstone, 

 simultaneously stretching himself up, and spreading the 

 fan of his tail, opening and puffing his wings. When the 

 sun clears the horizon he rejoins his females, dances be- 

 fore them, while they devour him with their eyes, then 

 he mounts them, according to his caprice, and with great 

 vivacity. 



Polygamy is the rule among herbivora; bulls, bucks, 

 stallions, bison are made to reign over a troop of females. 

 Domesticity changes their permanent polygamy into 

 successive polygamy. Stags go from female to female 

 without tying up to any; the females follow this example. 

 A specie immediately akin gives, on the contrary, an 

 example of the couple; the roebuck and his doe live in 

 family, and bring up their young until these are ready 

 to mate. The male of a certain Asian antelope needs 

 more than a hundred docile females. Naturally, these 

 153 



