clairvoyance, of which the stork which takes its departure for the south
four weeks earlier than usual knows no more than does the stag when
before a cold winter he grows himself a thicker pelt than is his wont.
On the one hand, animals have present in their consciousness a perception
of the actual state of the weather; on the other, their ensuing action is
precisely such as it would be if the idea present with them was that of
the weather that is about to come. This they cannot consciously have;
the only natural intermediate link, therefore, between their conscious
knowledge and their action is supplied by unconscious idea, which,
however, is always accurately prescient, inasmuch as it contains
something which is neither given directly to the animal through sensual
perception, nor can be deduced inferentially through the understanding.
Most wonderful of all are the instincts connected with the continuation
of the species. The males always find out the females of their own kind,
but certainly not solely through their resemblance to themselves. With
many animals, as, for example, parasitic crabs, the sexes so little
resemble one another that the male would be more likely to seek a mate
from the females of a thousand other species than from his own. Certain
butterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males and females of the
same species differ, but the females present two distinct forms, one of
which as a general rule mimics the outward appearance of a distant but
highly valued species; yet the males will pair only with the females of
their own kind, and not with the strangers, though these may be very
likely much more like the males themselves. Among the insect species of
the _strepsiptera_, the female is a shapeless worm which lives its whole
life long in the hind body of a wasp; its head, which is of the shape of
a lentil, protrudes between two of the belly rings of the wasp, the rest
of the body being inside. The male, which only lives for a few hours,
and resembles a moth, nevertheless recognises his mate in spite of these
adverse circumstances, and fecundates her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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