COURTSHIP
IT is always amusing to find the lower animals behaving in various
circumstances of life very much as we do ourselves. There is a tendency
to look upon such conduct on the animals' part as a more or less clever
mimicry of humanity--a sort of burlesque of our own behaviour. Really,
however, it has a far greater interest; it is a revelation to us of
the nature and origin in our animal ancestry of various deeply-rooted
"behaviours" which are common to us and animals. The wooing of a maid
by a man and the various strange antics and poses to which love-sick
men and women are addicted, are represented by similar behaviour among
animals, and that, too, not only among higher animals allied to man,
but even among minute and obscure insects and molluscs. In fact, the
elementary principle of "courtship" or "wooing," namely, the pursuit
of the female by the male, is observed among the lowest unicellular
organisms--the Protozoa and the Protophyta--and it holds among plants
as well as among animals, for it is the pollen--the male fertilizing
material--which travels, carried by wind or by the nectar-bribed
"parcels-delivery company" of bees, to the ovules of a distant flower,
and not the ovules (the female products) which desert their homes in
quest of pollen.
The "reproduction," or producing of new individuals, of many animals
and plants can be, and is, effected by the detachment of large pieces
of a parent organism. Thus plants split into two or more pieces, each
of which carries on life as a new individual. Many worms and polyps
multiply by breaking into two or more pieces, and very often the
broken-off pieces which thus become new individuals and carry on the
race are extremely small, even microscopic in size. The spores of
ferns and the minute separable buds of many plants and animals are of
this nature. They grow into new individuals without any fusion with
fertilizing particles from another individual. Yet there seems to be
even in the very simplest living things a need to be met, an advantage
to be gained, in the fusion of the substance of two distinct parents
in order to carry on the race with the best chance of success. We find
that those organisms which can multiply by buds and fission yet also
multiply regularly by ovules fertilized by sperms. We see this process
in its simplest condition in microscopic plants and animals which are
so minute that they consist of only a single "cell"--a single nucleated
particle of protoplasm. Such unicellular organisms have definite
shape, even limb-like locomotor organs, shells, contractile heart-like
cavities within the protoplasm, even mouths, digestive tract, and a
vent. They produce new individuals by merely dividing into two equal
halves or by more rapidly dividing into several individuals each like
the parent, only smaller. But from time to time, at recurring periods
or seasons, two of these unicellular individuals (of course, two of
the same kind or species) come into contact with one another, not by
mere chance, but attracted and impelled (probably by chemical guiding
or alluring substances of the nature of perfumes) towards one another,
and then fuse into one. Two (or sometimes several) individuals thus
melt together and become one individual--a process the exact reverse
of the division of one into two. This is known to microscopists as
"conjugation." The new individual resulting from conjugation after
a time divides, and the individuals thus produced, each consisting
of a mixture of the fused and thoroughly mixed substance of the two
conjugated individuals, feed and grow and divide in their turn, and so
on for several generations, until again the epidemic of conjugation
sets in, and the scattered offspring of many distinct pairs of the
previous conjugation-season in their turn conjugate.
It is clear that the tendency of this process is to prevent the
continued multiplication of one stock or line of descent in a pure
state. By conjugation different lines of descent--the progeny of
different individuals, often brought together from widely separate
localities--are blended and fused. And this is, we are led to conclude,
a matter of immense importance. To effect this mixture of separate
stocks is, as Darwin has shown, a prime purpose of the habits and
structures implanted in the very substance of living things, and
developed and accentuated in endless ways and with extraordinary
elaboration of mechanisms and procedure during the immense lapse of
ages during which life has unfolded and developed on this earth. The
fusion of different strains by conjugation gives increased variation
in the offspring or new generations: for the two parental strains
differ more or less, as all living individuals do, from one another.
The result of their fusion is different from either parent. In fact,
the process of fusion itself causes a disturbance--a readjustment of
the living matter--so that completely new variations result and are
selected or rejected in the struggle for existence. Either parental
strain was perhaps not so suitable to a newly developed change in the
surrounding conditions of life as the new blend may be. Thus a more
certain and active production of possibly useful variations is provided
for than would be the case were the variations of one self-multiplying
stock alone presented for selection.
In the case of simple conjugation the cell individuals which fuse or
"mate" with one another, and may be called "maters" or "mating cells,"
are in all respects similar to one another. But we find among the
unicellular plants and animals cases in which one of the mating cells,
instead of fusing with another straight away, divides into a number
of much smaller cells, which are very active in locomotion and are
specially produced in order to mate or fuse with the larger cells. The
mating cells are called "gametes," and the large motionless mating
cells are called "macro-gametes," or "large maters," whilst the small
motile mating cells are called "micro-gametes," or small "maters."
The former are of the same nature as egg cells or ovules, the female
reproductive particles, whilst the latter, the small "maters," are
identical in nature with the sperms or spermatozoa or male reproductive
particles of higher organisms. In the case of certain parasitic
unicellular animals called coccidia, and also in the parasite which
causes malarial fever, quantities of small "mating cells" are produced
which fuse with or "fertilize" other much larger mating cells. The
small "maters" of coccidia have long vibrating tails and minute oblong
bodies, and agree closely in appearance and active locomotion with the
spermatozoa of higher animals and plants. The large spherical mating
cells might be mistaken for the egg cells of larger animals. In the
globe animalcule, Volvox globator, we find a transitional condition
leading us to the production of small (male) and large (female)
mating cells, like those regularly produced by the massive plants and
animals which are built up by hundreds of thousands of "cells" or
protoplasmic units conjoined and performing different services for the
common life. Volvox is one of those simple aquatic organisms which is
not a single cell but a group of many cells (some hundred) hanging
together--in this case so as to form a hollow sphere. All the cells of
an individual sphere are alike, and have originated by division from
one first cell. When the "breeding season" arrives one or two cells of
the sphere increase in bulk--they become "large mating cells"--in fact,
egg cells. At the same time one or two divide (without separating), so
as to form packets of minute oblong cells with vibrating tails. These
are "small maters," or "spermatozoa." When ripe they separate and swim
away to fertilize--that is to say, to fuse with--the large "mating
cells" or egg cells of other Volvox spheres. Such a Volvox sphere as I
have described is "bi-sexual": it produces both large and small mating
cells, both male and female reproductive cells. But sometimes we find
that a number of Volvox spheres produce only large mating cells by
the swelling up of one or two of their constituent cells. They are,
in fact, female Volvox spheres. And other Volvox spheres produce only
packets of small mating cells by the splitting and change of one or two
of their constituent cells. They are male Volvox spheres.
When we now look at the higher plants and animals formed of
aggregations of innumerable cells (all derived from the division of
a first cell--an embryo cell or fertilized egg cell) we find that
amongst the mass of variously shaped cells forming the "tissues" of
these higher organisms some are set apart even in early growth as
"mating cells" (gametes or reproductive cells). Usually they are in
two groups--namely, the ovary, which includes the large mating cells
or egg cells or ova; and the spermary, which includes the cells which
break up into small mating cells or sperms. In many animals both ovary
and spermary are present in the same individual, but in most of the
larger animals (insects, crustaceans, and vertebrates) either the ovary
is suppressed, when the creature is called a male, and produces only
small mating cells, or the spermary is suppressed, and the creature
is a female, producing only egg cells. In both cases there may be a
distinct but minute representative of the suppressed organ present and
recognizable by its microscopic structure.
The point in this history, which seems to be important and must not be
lost sight of, is that the small mating cell is in all the stages cited
actively mobile and swims rapidly through water when its producer is an
aquatic animal. The large mating cell is quiescent. It is more or less
swollen with granular nutrient particles--often vastly so enlarged.
It already is acting the maternal part, preparing nourishment for the
growing embryo which will develop from its protoplasm when fused with
that of the relatively tiny but active male mating cell. And it is
certainly very noteworthy that when these two kinds of mating cells
become separated in distinct "carriers" (that is to say, produced one
without the other in what are called male and female individuals), the
primitive character of the mating cells--whichever of the two kinds
they be--impresses itself on the complex elaborate many-celled organism
in which they arise. The male is the more active, the more disposed to
travel. It is always the male who seeks, courts, woos, and attacks the
female, as the small mating cells seek and attack the larger mating
cells. The character and conduct of the female animal is largely (not
without deviations and additions) based on that of the larger mating
cell or macro-gamete; she is the one who waits, is sought, is courted,
and wooed. And like the egg cells of which she is the vehicle and
envelope, she is specially concerned in the provision of nutriment for
the early growth of the young.
Courtship, then, seems to have had its foundations very deeply laid,
even in the earliest and simplest forms of life--at the time when the
principle of the union of the substance of two strains to produce a new
generation was established, and when, further, the active, seeking male
cell was differentiated from the immobile nourishing female cell.
Amongst the polyps, sea-anemones, and jelly-fish, though we frequently
find that there are distinct males and females, there is no courtship.
This is connected with the fact that, like plants, they are (excepting
the jelly-fish) fixed and immobile. The male cannot "court" the female,
because neither of them can approach the other. I once saw in the
aquarium at Naples a sudden and simultaneous discharge of a white
cloud, like dust, into the water from half the magnificent sea-anemones
fixed and immobile in three large tanks. The cloud consisted of
millions of the small "mating cells," and were thrown off by the males.
They were carried far and wide by the stream running through the tanks.
In the sea such a discharge would be carried along by currents, and
might fertilize egg-bearing sea-anemones of the same species growing a
mile or two away.
It is when we have to do with actively moving animals that "courtship"
comes into existence. It has many features and phases, which comprise
simple discovery of the female and presentation of himself by the
courting male; attempts to secure the female's attention, and to
fascinate and more or less hypnotize her, by display of brilliant
colours or unusual and astonishing poses or movements (such as dancing)
on the part of the male; efforts of the male to attach the female to
himself, and deadly, often fatal, combats with other males, in order
to drive them off and secure a recognized and respected solitude for
himself and his mate. The courtship of many insects, crustaceans,
molluscs, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals has been watched and
recorded in regard to these details. Naturally enough, it is in the
higher forms, the birds and the mammals, that there are the most
elaborate and intelligible proceedings in regard to the attraction
of the female. But when we compare what birds or, in fact, any
animal, does with what man does, we must remember that man has, as
compared with them, an immense memory, and has also consciousness. All
other animals are to a very large extent mere automata, pleasurably
conscious, perhaps (in the higher forms), of the passing moment and of
the actions which they are instinctively performing, but without any
understanding or thought on the subject. They cannot think because,
though some of them are endowed to a limited extent with memory,
they have not arrived at the human stage of mental development when
consciousness takes account of memory, a memory of enormously increased
variety and duration.
Man has more and more, as he has advanced in mental growth, rejected
the unreasoning instinctive classes of action, and substituted for them
action based on his own experience and conscious memory, action which
is the result of education--not the education of the school, but that
of life in all its variety. But in many things he is still entirely
guided by unreasoning mechanical instinct, and in others he is partly
impelled by the old inherited instinct, partly restrained and guided by
reason based on experience and memory. This makes the comparison of the
courting man with the courting animal doubly interesting. We ought to
distinguish what he is doing as a result of ancient inherited mechanism
from what he is doing as a result of conscious observation, memory, and
reasoning.