The Meaning of Evolution

by Samuel Christian Schmucker

In addition to the allurements above described there are certain peculiar behaviors of the animal during the mating season which are intensely interesting. Sometimes they consist simply of a wild delirium of joy, which overpowers the animal completely and makes him do wonderful things. Birds will fly with impetuous leaps in the air, mount higher and higher, singing wildly, only to turn suddenly at the top of the flight and drop promptly to the ground. I have seen such ecstatic flights in the oven bird and in our rollicking gold finch. I have seen a catbird on his way to a tree turn three somersaults, much like those performed by a tumbler pigeon, after which he alighted upon the bough. None of these acts seemed deliberately performed in front of the females, but I have seen three or four killdeer parading in most stately and precise manner, spreading their wings and fluffing their feathers, performing a sublimated cup-and-cake walk amid a circle of attracted females.

Even our little English sparrow, as I have previously mentioned, fluffs himself up and spreads his wings and prances around in front of his presumably adoring ladylove. But the weirdest performance of this sort I have ever seen is that shown by the male ostrich. When he becomes excited, swaying his body from side to side, he sinks slowly upon his knees, until his body touches the ground, his wings spread on either side and the feathers fluffed up so as to show every exquisite plume in all its splendid beauty. The long neck is laid back until the head, which is doubled sharply forward, is pressed almost against the back, and in this strange position he sways from side to side, apparently utterly oblivious, for a time, of everything. After about a minute of this performance, he seems slowly to come to himself and rise again to his feet. Now he is particularly likely to make vicious attack upon anything within reach.

It is not only necessary that the animal should be able to attract a mate. There may be more than one claimant for the damsel's affection. In many animals we see provisions whereby the male may effectively deal with his rivals. This is especially likely to be the case if the animal be a polygamist. In every species there are produced about as many males as females. If the polygamous habit leads one male to gather about him a group of females, with whom he mates, it is evident that he is displacing an equal number of rivals, and they are not willingly displaced. Accordingly we find that polygamy is usually accompanied by a belligerent disposition on the part of the males. In our ordinary barnyard fowl this trait is very evident. The rooster not only domineers over the hens, not only struts about among them in stately fashion and gives vent to his feelings by his sonorous voice, he must also drive away from the neighborhood any rivals for the affections of his wives. Hence the rooster attacks upon sight the neighboring rooster, and battles with him to his entire discomfiture and sometimes to the death.

Among the members of the deer family this particular phase of the relation between the sexes has produced in the males, and only very rarely in the females, the magnificent branching horns. These are intended not so much as a protection against the enemy as for an offensive weapon in the battle for the mates.

Beautiful and stately as are these magnificent horns, they last only for a part of the year. We begin to understand their meaning. When the wolf is hungriest, toward the close of the bitter winter, the deer is without horns. When the time for mating comes, the deer within a few weeks grows his horns, which at first are covered with a plushlike coating, known as velvet. After a while this dries and he rubs his horns against the trees until they are clean and smooth. Now he is ready for the battle royal.

In the case of the fur seals polygamy has carried its specialization of the males to a remarkable extent. The bull seals are several times as large as the cows, and are provided with terrific canine teeth. With these they battle with a violence that very often results in the death of one of the combatants. A successful bull seal who has gathered about him a cluster of seal cows is seamed and scarred with the marks of his annual combats.

One more type of adaptation can be profitably considered. Animals have developed many devices which serve for the protection of their young. The wonderful silk spun by the spider was evidently primarily intended to serve as a covering for the eggs. Probably all of our spiders agree in using the silk for this purpose. Many of them employ it for practically no other, though there are half a dozen different uses to which different spiders may put their silk. Under these conditions we have a right to infer that silk was primarily developed as a coating for the eggs. In the case of some of our spiders a little fluffy mass of silk covers the egg, while a firmly woven sheet of silk covers both egg mass and fluff, holding it flat against a wall or the trunk of a tree. In some of the higher spiders, notably our bank spiders, the silken covering becomes an effective cocoon, spherical in shape, with a little opening at the top like the neck of a small bottle. The egg cocoon is woven in a mass of tangled silk between the branches of some tough weed which will be sure to outlast the winter. Into the egg cocoon the spider may place one thousand or more eggs. Having thus provided her children with a snug winter home, the spider dies. When spring comes with the warm rays of the sun, the eggs hatch and the cocoon becomes a creeping mass of minute spiders. At the time these spiders appear there is nothing for them to eat. The obvious way out of this difficulty is taken. At once there begins a progressive party. Spider fights with spider, and the prize in each conflict is the body of the victim, which is promptly eaten. The winners in the first round pair off again, and a little later, as hunger drives them, another set of combats comes on, resulting in another halving of the number of spiders in the cocoon. This process continues until not more than one-tenth of the original number of spiders remains. By this time they have gained sufficient strength of leg and jaw, and sufficient dexterity in the use of both, to make it safe for them to venture out and try their fortunes among the accidents of a strenuous world. There can be little doubt after this long process has worked its final results which tenth remains. Chance plays but small part in this game. It is the fittest that survive. When this procedure goes on generation after generation, the result must necessarily be that the spiders grow fitter and fitter for their work. This method is hard on the little spider, but it makes good spiders.

Most insects die before their eggs hatch; accordingly they can pay no attention to their own children. Whatever arrangements are provided for the safety and strength of these offspring must be provided before they appear. About the only care the majority of insects take in this direction is to see that the eggs are placed where the young shall find food as soon as they emerge. Insects' eggs are very small, and as a consequence the creatures which emerge from them are likewise exceedingly minute. As a result they cannot be expected to hunt far for their food. Different insects use different devices by which to overcome this difficulty. The katydid, for instance, must die with the approach of fall. Her children will not appear until the following year. Her food consists of leaves, but to lay the eggs in such a situation would be a fatal process, because the leaf will drop off before the eggs hatch. Accordingly, the katydid lays its shield-shaped eggs in a double row near the end of a young twig. Next year when the weather is sufficiently warm to hatch katydids, it is also warm enough to force the buds on the end of the twigs. When the katydids arrive their jaws are young and tender, but so are the leaves upon which they are born. Hence there is little difficulty on the part of the young katydids in finding an abundance of food. By the time the leaves have grown tougher, the katydid's jaws are stronger, and the leaves will still serve as food.

Everyone who is at all familiar with country life and gardening is familiar with what is called the potato or tomato worm. It is a long, green, smooth, caterpillar, as long and as fat as your finger and provided with a horn upon his tail. The gardener may not know that after a while this creature will burrow into the ground, and there change into an oblong brown mass with a sort of a pitcher handle at one side. Next year this pupa will split down the back, and from out of the brown case will come a hawk-moth, which soon will fly with rapidly quivering wings and feast upon the nectar of our moon flowers or on that of the "Jimson" weed. Those who have cleaned these pests from the potato or tomato vines will often have noticed one of them covered with what look almost like grains of rice. This appearance reveals an interesting story. Some time earlier an insect that looked very much like a dainty wasp with a rather long sting in its tail hovered over the caterpillar. This is the ichneumon fly. Eventually lighting upon the caterpillar's back, it punctured the skin with its sting, and deposited eggs within the caterpillar's body. These eggs soon hatched and the little grubs worked their way through the body of its host. The infested victim feeds upon leaves and fills itself with rich food. These parasites eat the food, and, try as it may, the caterpillar does not succeed in getting fat. After the grubs have gotten their full growth, each of them eats its way through a little hole to the outside of the caterpillar's body. Here it spins around itself a little white case, and looks like a rice grain. As the caterpillar moves about, these seeming rice grains are rubbed off and fall to the ground. Next year there will come up new ichneumon flies to sting fresh caterpillars and repeat the entire process.

Another remarkable provision for the young on the part of insects is seen in the behavior of the big sphex wasp, known as the cicada killer. The cicada, it will be remembered, is what is commonly called a locust. The cicada killer is a magnificent big wasp, whose body is nearly an inch long, banded with black and yellow, while the wings are colored a smoky brown. This muscular wasp digs a long tunnel eight or ten inches deep, which ends in a slightly larger room. Having provided the location, he now sallies forth in search of the cicada. The heavy song of the male probably serves as a guide to the wasp in case of scarcity of cicadas, but the killer has apparently little difficulty in finding his prey. The wasp pounces upon the insect, and in spite of its strength and the thrashing of its vigorous wings punctures it with his sting again and again. The poison of the sting entering into the nerve centers gradually paralyzes, but usually does not kill, the cicada. Now the killer carries its prey home, pushes it to the bottom of the tunnel and deposits upon it a single egg. The wasp closes up the hole and leaves the place. When the egg hatches and the grub of the wasp emerges, it finds a big cicada just at hand, upon which it feeds. By the time the cicada is completely devoured, the wasp grub has obtained its full growth. After a short period of development a new sphex wasp is ready to work its way out of the tunnel, find a mate, dig a hole, and safely provide for its own children.