The second example I want to consider is that of the common spider, whose curious courtship customs are described by Darwin.[37] Here we find the relatively gigantic female seizing and devouring the tiny male fertiliser, as he seeks to perform the only duty for which he exists. This is a case of female superiority carried to a savage conclusion. The male in these courtships often has to risk his life many times, and it seems only to be by an accident that he ever escapes alive from the embraces of his infuriated partner. I will give an example, taken from the _mantes_, or praying insect, where, though the difference in size between the sexes is much less than among many spiders, the ferocity of the female is extraordinary. This case is quoted by Professor Lester Ward,[38] who gives it on the authority of Dr. L.O. Howard, one of the best-known entomologists-- "A few days since I brought a male or _Mantes carolina_ to a friend who had been keeping a solitary female as a pet. Placing them in the same jar, the male, in alarm, endeavoured to escape. In a few minutes the female succeeded in grasping him. She bit off his left front tarsus and consumed the tibia and femur. Next she gnawed out his left eye. At this the male seemed to realise his proximity to one of the opposite sex, and began vain endeavours to mate. The female next ate up his right front leg, and then entirely decapitated him, devouring his head and gnawing into his thorax. Not until she had eaten all his thorax, except about three millimetres did she stop to rest. All this while the male had continued in his vain attempt to obtain entrance at the valvula, and he now succeeded, and she voluntarily spread the parts open, and union took place. She remained quiet for four hours, and the remnant of the male gave occasional signs of life, by a movement of one of his remaining tarsi for three hours. The next morning she had entirely rid herself of her spouse, and nothing but his wings remained." You will think, perhaps, that this extreme case of female ferocity has little bearing upon our sexual passions. But consider. I have not quoted it, as is done by Professor Ward, to prove the existence of the superiority of the female in Nature. No, rather I want to suggest a lesson that may be wrested by us from these first courtships in the life histories of the sexes. I spoke at the beginning of this biological section of my book of the warnings that surely would come as we traced the evolution of our love-passions from those of our pre-human ancestors. We are too apt to ignore the tremendous force that the sex-impulse has gathered from its incalculably long history. As animals exhibit in their love-matings the analogies of the human virtue, it is not surprising to find the occurrence of parallel vices. Let us look for a moment at this in the light of the fierce love-contest of the female spider.