SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX AND REPRODUCTION. 



257 



maternal body-cavity through a prolapsus uteri of the sacrificed 

 mother. In the precocious reproduction of some midge larvse 

 {Chironomus, &c.), the production of young is fatal through 

 successive generations. 



Both Weismann and Goette, though with different interpreta- 

 tions, note how many insects (locusts, butterflies, ephemerids, 

 &c.) die a few hours after the production of ova. The 

 exhaustion is fatal, and the males are also involved. In fact, as 

 we should expect from the katabolic temperament, it is the 

 males which are especially liable to exhaustion. The males of 



Orthonectids, showing the rupture of the female in liberating 

 the germs. — From Goette, after Julin. 



some spiders normally die after fertilising the female, a fact 

 perhaps helping to throw light upon the sacrifice of others to 

 their mates. The similarly tiny (ultra-katabolic) male rotifer — 

 an ideal but too unpractical lover, with not even an alimentary 

 canal — would seem usually to fail and expire prematurely, 

 leaving the female to undisturbed parthenogenesis. Every one 

 is familiar with the close association of love and death in the 

 common mayflies. Emergence into winged liberty, the love- 



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