CHAPTER V 

 ADAPTATION FOR THE SPECIES 



THE strife, as we have described it thus far, is a 

 purely selfish struggle. Every point gained is a point 

 favorable to the welfare of the individual animal. But 

 nature is uncommonly careless of the individual unless 

 the advantage gained is also of use to the species as a 

 whole. Very often the life of an animal ceases when 

 provision has been made for its young. The male 

 garden spider may have a long and dangerous court- 

 ship, in which the uncertain temper of his ladylove 

 may lead her to bite off four or five of his eight legs. 

 But her ingratitude is not yet complete. He may have 

 barely accomplished his desperate purpose of fertiliz- 

 ing her eggs at all hazards, when she ends the process 

 by eating him. The male bumblebee fertilizes the fe- 

 male in the late summer and then dies. She does not 

 lay her eggs before the next season. So it happens 

 that no bumblebee ever sees its own father, and no 

 father bumblebee ever sees his own children. In the 

 honey bee the male, which has been fortunate enough 

 to fertilize the queen, pays for his honor by death 



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