Musical Lovers among Spiders and Scorpions—Colour among Spiders, and its uses—The Spiders’ Dance of Death—Spiders and Conjugal Bliss—How Pairing is accomplished—Scorpions in Love—Musical Crabs—Quarrelsome Fiddler-crabs—Crabs and Courtship in the Deep Sea-Amazons among Prawns—Brine-shrimps and Water-fleas—“Natural” v. “Sexual” Selection 236 CHAPTER XIII SOME STRANGE MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS: AND VIRGIN BIRTHS The Courtship of the Cuttle-fish—The Sumptuous Cradle of the Argonaut—The Love-darts of the Snail—Hermaphrodites and the Dangers of Self-fertilization—Oysters and Beauty—Sex reduced to its Lowest Terms—Parthenogenesis and Virgin Birth—The Story of the Hive-Bee—The Departure of the Queen—The New Queen and her Marriage-flight—The Celebration of the Nuptials and its Surprising Sequel—The Widowed Queen turns Executioner—The Queen as Mother—The Queen’s Daughters—Nursemaids’ Duties—Change of Work—The Drones and their Career—Food and Sex—The Bumble-bee and its Life-story 265 CHAPTER XIV PARTHENOGENESIS AND ITS SEQUEL Courtship among the Ants—The Great Renunciation—Maternity carried to Extremes—Where Males are Superfluous—Degenerate Males—Keeping Death at Bay—Where Females are Unknown 296 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Love-making Frontispiece Facing page The Gorilla preparing for hostilities 42 The barometer of maleness—among the Apes 44 Weapons of offence 52 Manchurian Wapiti “calling” 54 Group of Beisa Oryx 60 Eland Cows 64 American Bison 64 Elephants 70 Head of male Wart-hog 72 Male and female Babirusa 72 Somali Zebras 72 Giraffe 72 Californian Sea-lions, or Eared Seals 82 Elephant Seal 88 Northern Elephant Seal 88 “The Peacock in his pride” 96 Peacock Pheasant 96 Patterns which puzzled Darwin 98 The “Strutting Turkey” 100 The display of the Great Bustard 100 Some of Fortune’s favourites 104 The love-making of the Prairie Hen 110