The small mantis, or colourless mantis, is almost as fierce as her great sister, the religious mantis; but the empuse, a kindred specie, seems peaceful.
[CHAPTER XV]
THE SEXUAL PARADE
Universality of the caress, of amorous preludes.—Their rôle in fecundation.—Sexual games of birds.—How cantharides caress.—Males' combats.—Pretended combats of birds.—Dance of the tetras.—Gardener bird.—His country house.—His taste for flowers.—Reflections on the origin of his art.—Combats of crickets.—Parade of butterflies.—Sexual sense of orientation.—The great-peacock moth.—Animals' submission to orders of Nature.—Transmutation of physical values.—Rutting calendar.
One has convinced oneself in the preceding chapters that the games of love, preludes, caresses, combats are in no way peculiar to the human race. On nearly all rungs of the animal ladder, or rather on all the branches of the animal fan, the male is the same, the female is the same. It is always the equation given in the intimate mechanism of union of animalcule and ovule: a fortress toward which amans volat currit ac lætatur. The whole passage of the Imitatio (L. III, chap. iv, 4) is a marvellous psychological presentation of love in nature, of sexual attraction as it is felt throughout the whole series of creatures. The besieger must enter the fortress; he uses violence, sometimes gentle violence; more often trickery, the caress.
Caress, charming movements, grace, tenderness, we do all these things of necessity, not because we are men, but because we are animals. Their aim is to liven the sensibilities, to dispose the organism to accomplish with joy its supreme function. They are, very probably, agreeable to the individual and they are perceived as pleasure only because they are useful to the species. This character of necessity is naturally more apparent in animals than in man. In animals the caress has fixed forms, of which the kiss, however, gives a good example; the caress is an integral part of the cavalage. A prelude, but a prelude which can not be omitted without compromising the essential part of the drama. It happens, however, that man, able to overexcite himself cerebrally, may abridge, or even neglect the prologue to coition: this is also noted in certain domestic mammifers, the bull and stallion. The mere sight or smell of the other sex is doubtless enough to produce a state permitting immediate union. This is not the case with dogs, who are still more domestic, the two sexes give themselves up to play, to explorations, they demand each other's consent, courtship continues, sometimes the male, despite his condition, retreats; more often the female lowers the draw-bridge of her tail, and closes the fortress. One knows the provocations of birds. M. Mantegazza has agreeably recounted the sexual play of two vultures, the female shut in the carcass of an almost devoured horse, interrupted her pecking of carrion, to groan deeply, turning her head to look up into the air. A male vulture soared above the larder, replying to the groans of the female. However, when the overexcited male descended toward the supposedly willing vulturess, she retreated into the carcass, and after a short dispute she made him understand that the time was not yet ripe, and sent him off. After which the groans recommenced; the female seemed annoyed; she mounted the cage of bone, swelling her wings, lifting her tail, cooing. The union finally took place in a great commotion of ruffled feathers and shaken bones.
The same author has precisely noted the complicated preludes indulged in by two sparrows. I give the résumé, graphically: A troop of sparrows on the roof in the morning; calm, they make their toilet. Arrives a large male who emits a violent cry; one of the females replies at once, not by a cry but by an act: she leaves the group. The male joins her, she flies to a neighbouring roof; there follows a long chatter beak to beak. New flight; the male rests in the sun, then rejoins the minx. The assaults begin, the male is repulsed. The female moves off, in little hops. The edge of the roof stops the flight, she profits by this excuse and surrenders.
But it is the prodigious insect whom one must interrogate. One knows the cantharides, these beautiful coleoptera on whom pharmacy has inflicted so wicked a reputation. The female gnaws her oak leaf, the male arrives, mounts her back, enlaces her with his hind feet. Then with his stretched abdomen he flagellates the female alternately to right and left with frantic speed. At the same time he massages her, lashes her neck furiously with his front feet, all his body shakes and vibrates. The female remains passive, awaiting the calm. It comes. Without letting go the male stretches out his forelegs in a cross, unbends a little, wagging from head and corselet. The female starts eating again. The calm is short; the male's follies recommence. Then there is another manœuvre, with the fold of his legs and tarses, he seizes the female's antennæ, forces her to lift her head, at the same time redoubling the lashing of her flanks. New pose; new start of the flagellation: finally the female opens. The coupling lasts a day and a night, after which the male falls, but remains knotted to the female who drags him from leaf to leaf, the penis attached to her organs. Sometimes he also takes a mouthful here and there; when he drops off it is to die. The female lays the eggs and dies in her turn. The cerocome, an insect kin to the cantharide, has analogous habits, but the female is even colder, and the male is obliged to tap more than one before getting an answer. In vain he beats the sides of his chosen companion with his paws, she remains insensible, inert. This action, moreover, has the full appearance of having passed to a state of mania in the male muscles, so much so that, in default of females, males mount and pummel each other. As soon as a male is charged by another male he takes the female attitude and remains quiet; one sees pyramids of three or four males; in which case the top one is the only one wildly waving his feet; the others remain immobile, as if their position of mounts transformed them into passive animals: probably because their muscles are pinned down. (For these two observations see Fabre, "Souvenirs," vol. II. Cérocomes, mylabres et zonitis.)