Such a conclusion may seem absurd, and perhaps it is, since we cannot know what "nimble emanations" and vibrations, which touch not our coarser natures, there may be to link these diverse and seemingly ill-fitting actions into one perfect chain. It may be said, for instance, that in this species the incessant stridulating of the male has an action similar to that of the sun's light and heat on plant life, causing the flower to blow and its sexual organs to ripen. But we see, too, that Nature does often overshoot her mark. We have seen it, I think, in the over-refinement of the passion and faculty of fear in certain species, in reference to cases of fascination, and we see it in the over-protected and the over-specialised; but we are so imbued with the idea that the right mean has always been hit upon and {149} adhered to, that it is only in view of the most flagrant cases to the contrary that we are ever startled out of that delusion. The miserable case, for example, of the _Polyergus rufescens_, the slave-making ant, who, from being too much waited upon, has so entirely lost the power of waiting upon himself that he will perish of hunger amidst plenty if his slaves be not there to pick up and put the food into his mouth. These extreme cases are not the only ones; for every one of such a character there are hundreds of cases. "Degeneration," as Ray Lankester has aptly said, "goes hand in hand with elaboration"; and I would add that in numberless cases over-elaboration is the cause of degeneration. [Sidenote: The female viridissima]