228 FATHERLESS PROGENY 



were not ascribed to any natural process such as we now 

 recognise in the "parthenogenesis " of insects and crus- 

 taceans, but to the visitation of the mother by a spirit— 

 a floating, volatile demon or angel (known as an "incubus" 

 in the Middle Ages) — beneficent or malicious as the case 

 might be. Stories of the nocturnal visits of these mys- 

 terious ghostly " incubi " are on record in great number 

 and variety, both in European and Oriental tradition and 

 legend. There seems to have been a readiness to believe 

 the theory of paternity from among the hidden world of 

 goblins, fairies, and sprites which was very naturally made 

 use of by a woman and her relatives when she could not 

 produce the father of her child. 



We come across examples of such beliefs in invisible 

 agents of paternity even among the more cultivated 

 Romans. Thus Virgil in his " Georgics " cites as a fact 

 that mares are fertilised by the wind. His words are 

 given on the next page. 



It is now known that, quite apart from any motive of 

 concealment of the true paternity of their offspring, some 

 of the native tribes of Australia have the belief that, as the 

 regular and normal thing, children are begotten by strange 

 fairy-like spirits which haunt the rocks and trees of certain 

 localities and enter the future mother as she passes by 

 these haunted rocks and trees. These Australian " black 

 fellows " hold that the human father counts for nothing in 

 the matter. The belief of these Australian savages is 

 referred to by writers on the subject (Mr. Andrew Lang 

 and others) as "the spiritual theory of conception." 

 There are some reasons for thinking that this curious 

 theory and the accompanying ignorance as to the natural 

 causes of conception were widely spread among primeval 

 men. The fact that most trees are fertilised by the wind 

 (which carries to their female flowers the invisible powder, 

 or pollen, of the male flowers, conveyed in the case of 

 smaller plants which have gay-coloured flowers by bees 



