Diversions of a NaturalistLankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
History
Diversions of a Naturalist
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
Natural history
The true cuttle-fish, with the
hard oblong shell sunk in the back, lays each egg in a dark leathery
shell. They look like small grapes, and are left, thus protected, to
their fate. They have been studied, both before I obtained octopus eggs
and since, in great detail. The "squid" embeds her eggs, many together,
in bunches of long fingers of colourless jelly. Only the octopus and
the argonaut, among Cephalopods, are known to give maternal care and
incubation to their eggs.
CHAPTER XXIII
COURTSHIP, INSTINCT AND REASON
APART from the familiar instances of male colour-decoration afforded
by birds, we find that even some of the minute water-fleas inhabiting
freshwater lakes and the sea, and known as Crustacea Entomostraca, put
on a courting dress at the breeding season; that is to say, the males
become brilliantly coloured with patches of red and blue. And among
the highest mammals we find that the same colours are, in some cases,
displayed by the males as a fascination to the females. This is the
case with the males of some of the baboons, though not with those of
the highest man-like apes, who, like the primitive "savage" man, have
no decoration, no pretty seductive ways appealing to either the eye
or the ear, but rely on their strength and ferocity to overawe and
paralyze the female. In the male "mandrill" baboon the skin of the
sides of the great snout is of a deep blue colour, whilst the nose and
a tract behind it is wax-like and bright red. Not only that, but the
buttocks are brilliantly coloured, a central red area passing at the
sides through rich purple to pale blue. The animal, which is often
to be seen in menageries, is evidently proud of this finely-coloured
region of his body, and turns it to a visitor and remains quietly
posed, so that it may be well seen and duly admired. The hind-quarters
of other monkeys, both male and female, show a brilliant red colouring
during the mating season, and the skin and hair of the face is
variously coloured, so as to produce a decorative pattern (eyebrows,
moustache, beard, nose, all strongly contrasted in colour) in the
smaller monkeys, usually more strikingly in the males than in the
females. A brilliant emerald-green patch of colour is shown in the
hinder part of the body of the male in one species sometimes to be seen
at Regent's Park.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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