The head is small, with long antennæ. At the tip of the abdomen is a short, pointed projection, a sort of hook, an implement of pairing. Of mouth-parts or rostrum there is absolutely not a trace. What would he do with them, this microcephalous coxcomb? He has changed his shape only to flirt for a moment with his neighbours of the other sex, to mate and to die. Moreover, the part which he fulfils does not seem to be particularly necessary. On the spurge in my study the female population of the second generation numbers several thousands, and I obtain, in all, some thirty males. Approximately, there are a hundred times as many females. The dandified wearers of the aigrette cannot suffice for such a harem. On the other hand, they do not seem to be very eager. I see some who, on emerging from the ruins of their capsule, covered with powder, brush and wipe themselves a little, try their wings, and then, with a lazy flight, make for the window, which is closed to prevent their escape. The festival of the sunlight is to them a greater attraction than the emotions of pairing. It is possible that the indifferent lighting of the room is in this case the cause of their coldness. In the open country, under the direct rays of the sun, they would certainly have displayed their finery amidst the marriageable females, and the business of pairing would not have lacked ardour. But even though the most favourable circumstances had conditioned the pairing, the exaggerated number of females, out of all proportion to the males, tells us that very few are chosen among many that are called: roughly about one in a hundred. Nevertheless, all produce offspring. With these singular creatures it is enough that a few mothers are fecundated from time to time, and the race continues to thrive. The impulse communicated to the elect is a heritage which is handed down for some considerable time, on condition that a few couples, year by year, restore to the community its exhausted energies. A parasite frequently observed in Bee-hives, the Monodontomerus, has already shown us a similar example of the rarity of the males. Two tiny little creatures tell us of a vast field yet to be tilled by our genetic theories. One day, perhaps, they will help us to unravel the obscure problem of the sexes. Meanwhile the old mothers, the Dorthesiæ bearing the marsupium, grow day by day fewer on the spurge. Their ovaries exhausted and their wallets empty, they fall to the ground, where the Ants cut them to pieces. On the plant only those young mothers whose maternal pouches will not begin to make an appearance until the return of spring are visible nearly till Christmas. When the cold becomes severe the flock descends to the foot of the spurge, under the heap of dead leaves. They will come up again at the end of March, slowly climbing the spurge-plant, to acquire the rearing-pouch and begin once again the cycle of evolution. CHAPTER VI THE KERMES OF THE OAK [75]