THE DRAMA OF LIFE 49 



avoid the opposite error of excessive stinginess which 

 reduces the animal to the level of an automatic machine. 

 The true view is between these extremes. 



Among the loves of animals, we may find what is common- 

 place (when there is not the slightest hint of preferential 

 mating), but we also find the extraordinary, as when a she- 

 spider puts an abrupt full stop to a courtship by devouring 

 her suitor. We find what provokes us to mirth, as when a 

 male spider waltzes over a hundred times around his 

 desired mate at a respectful radius ; we find also what 

 seems pathetic, as in the familiar nuptial flights of the 

 ants, where the apparent waste of masculinity is so enor- 

 mous worse than the worst of wars. 



Let us travel to the meadows around Bologna. It is 

 late on a summer night, when the darkness is short. It is 

 very quiet, for even the frogs have ceased for weeks to utter 

 their cheerful brek-a-brek whose interrogativeness expresses 

 the essence of conversation. There seem to be living sparks 

 in the air and lesser lights among the grass. It is the 

 courtship of Luciola the Italian fire-fly. The lady- 

 Luciolas are sedentary ; the males fly about. When a 

 female catches sight of the flashes of an approaching male 

 she allows her splendour to shine forth. He sees the 

 signal, and is forthwith beside her, circling round like a 

 dancing elf. But one suitor is not enough, and the lady- 

 Luciola soon attracts a levee. In apparently courteous 

 rivalry her devotees form a respectful circle, flashes of light 

 come and go, and eventually in the dead of night the 

 coquette's choice is made. In the two sexes, Prof. Emery 

 says, the colour and intensity of the light is much the same, 

 but the luminous rhythm of the male is more rapid, with 

 briefer flashes ; while that of the female is more prolonged, 



