1146 Marvels of the Universe 
A similar process is gone through in other species, always in those where the male is more 
brightly coloured or ornamented than the female, and the attitudes adopted are always such as are 
calculated to display his beauties to the greatest advantage, whatever part of his organization may 
be the most finely decorated or developed. Sometimes it is a crested head, a painted thorax or an 
iridescent hind body ; sometimes a beautifully-feathered pair of mouth-parts known as palps, or 
similarly decorated forelegs, as in the dancing male shown on page 1145. Sad to relate, even these 
exhibitions sometimes fail to achieve the object aimed at, and the female expresses her displeasure 
by making a savage onslaught on the rejected suitor, an attack which may preclude him from 
trying his fortune in another direction. This, however, is not always the unhappy ending to the 
romance. Some males meet with such encouragement that they straightway set to work on the 
construction of a nuptial tent in which the honeymoon is passed. 
RED SNOW 
“As white as snow!” Such a phrase is in everyday use to express unexampled purity, and points to 
the general recognition of the dazzling whiteness of a snowfield. What, then, must have been the 
surprise of the unprepared traveller who first saw stretched out before him an expanse of blood- 
stained snow! He would stoop and examine the stains more closely, and would find little enough to 
satisfy his curiosity—no ghastly corpse beneath the surface, only a few handfuls of reddened snow. 
To him such a mystery could only be accounted for by black magic, and he would see in the 
phenomenon the ominous forewarning of the shedding of human blood. 
RED SNOW PLANT. 
Sphaerella, which gives its red colour to snow, is one of the simplest of plants, consisting of a single cell of microscopic 
smallness. At one stage it has the power of locomotion, propelling itself through water by the lashing of the gossamer-like 
organs shown in the illustration. 
