A crab, being encased in an unyielding shell, is able to increase its growth only by "casting" its shell and developing one of larger size over its increased bulk. During the interval between casting an old shell and acquiring a new one, the crab in its soft, pulpy condition is readily injured, or falls prey to its natural enemies. To protect itself as well as may be, it shelters in rocky crevices or in other available hiding-places. This shell-casting occurs in both sexes, of course. But the circumstances under which the change is made differ widely in the sexes. For while the male-crab has no protector during his defenceless, shell-less state, his shell is cast a month or more earlier than occurs in the female; after which he feeds up, in order to be in superior fighting trim for her protection during her shell-casting phase. Fishermen describe him as then spreading himself over her as a hen covers her chicks, and in her defence desperately attacking all comers. The result of such protection of the female is that, although males are larger and fiercer, "hen-crabs" are numerous, while males are scarce. The like is true of nearly every species. The males protect the females. Even the gorilla, savage and most terrible of beasts, lies at night on guard beneath the tree in which his mate and offspring sleep. If need arise, he fights to the death in their defence. With regard to the chivalrous devotion of male-birds, Olive Schreiner thus comments in _Woman and Labour_ (an example of that I have ventured to describe as the "impassioned fallacy" hurtling round the Woman Question): "Along the line of bird-life and among certain of its species, sex has attained its highest æsthetic, and one might almost say intellectual, development on earth ... represents the realisation of the highest sexual ideal which haunts humanity." (This however, less, I fear, to accredit the male-sex with chivalry than to discredit the human male by ornithological comparison!) * * * * * One does not profess that such protective rôle of males--beast and bird and crab--is the outcome of sentiment. It is instinctive, subconscious. Nature's purpose being to preserve and to perpetuate species, she achieves this by safeguarding the female. The province of the male in reproduction is but slight and brief. It exacts so little from him as to interfere not at all with those other masculine activities which are the function of his sex. Whereas, as Professor Lester Ward says, "Woman [and the female of all species] _is_ the Race." Out of her blood and bone and vital powers she evolves and fashions it, nurtures and ministers to it. III