1

sexual desire in the male is somewhat diminished, and the act of coition takes place but rarely. Again, while women are suckling there is usually such a call on the vital force made by the organs secreting milk that sexual desire is almost annihilated. Now, as experience teaches us that a reciprocity of desire is, to a great extent, necessary to excite the male, we must not be surprised if we learn that excesses in fertile married life are comparatively rare, and that sensual feelings in the man become gradually sobered down.

It is a curious fact that man and a few domesticated animals are alone liable to suffer from the effects of sexual excesses. In a state of nature wild female animals will not allow the approach of the male except when in a state of rut, and this occurs at long intervals and only at certain seasons of the year. The human female probably would not differ much in this respect from the wild animal, had she not been civilized, for as I shall have occasion again and again to remark, she would not for her own gratification allow sexual congress except at certain periods. The courtezan who makes a livelihood by her person may be toujours pres, but not so the pregnant wife or nursing mother. Love for her husband and a wish to gratify his passion, and in some women the knowledge that they would be deserted for courtezans if they did not waive their own inclinations may induce the indifferent,

1 We are apt to believe that in the human female it is almost impossible for gestation and lactation to go on simultaneously. In the mare, however, this occurs. In large breeding establishments the mare is usually put to the stallion, and will "show to the horse" nine days after a foal is dropped. The object of this of course is that in eleven months she shall again give birth to another foal. This is the surest way to obtain foals, although the produce of a mare after being a year barren is generally stronger and presumably better than on her becoming with foal while suckling. In fact, if left a twelvemonth barren, mares, I am informed by competent men, are stinted with great difficulty.

Mr. Blenkiron, the well-known breeder of race horses at Middle Park, has kindly looked over this note, and he tells me that, although this happens, mares often require some little management "to show to a horse, although in season," and it is necessary to put the twich on the nose to distract their attention, otherwise their affection for the foal induces them "not to show to the horse, although in season."

the passionless, to admit the embraces of their husbands. These are truths about which much ignorance and consequently much false reasoning prevails. No portion of my book has more surprised unmarried men than such statements as these. Married men, however, generally confirm my opinion, and not a few have acknowledged that had but wives been judicious and consulted more the feelings of their husbands, the Divorce Court would not have been so often appealed to, nor would women have cause to complain of there being so many unfaithful husbands.

Besides this kind of natural protection against excesses, arising from the periodical unwillingness of the human female to permit copulation, we find that there is in intellectual and civilized men no need for and no natural impulse towards that excessive periodical indulgence which we notice in the brute creation. The human male is naturally prepared to copulate at all times of the year; he is not, therefore, instinctively required to repeat the act so many times within a short period, as some domesticated animals are, for the purpose of propagating the species. The ram has been supposed to repeat the act from fifty to eighty times1 in the course of one night. The stallion2 is, or rather

1 This statement has been doubted. It is founded on the hypothesis, perhaps somewhat loose, that the chest and abdomen of a ram having been covered with "ruddle" over night, and the haunches of fifty ewes found smeared with the same composition in the morning, the animal had to such a numerical extent exercised his generative functions. This may or may not be a sequitur; but no manner of doubt exists that the sexual power of the animal is, in fact, as well as proverbially, very considerable; but let it be recollected that it is exercised only for a very short time in the twelve months.

2 The late Mr. Grey, who had the management of a large breeding establishment at Theobalds, told me that the celebrated stallion “Teddington,” who was then serving mares at his farm, was limited by his owner to fortyfive mares during the season, which lasts from February to July, but as it is desirable that mares should foal early in the year, the repeated acts of connection were included in a comparatively short time. In addition to this, the same mare is repeatedly (about every nine days) put to the horse, to secure impregnation. It appears, nevertheless, that these stallions do not suffer, and Mr. Grey was of opinion that this number, forty-five, is not too much. In reply to my inquiries, he said that nothing but oats and hay are given to these horses; beans are considered to heat them. He seemed not to think that a horse can cover too much, but admits that he may too rapidly. He did

ought to be, always limited to a certain number of mares, but as he takes his mounts during a limited time (two or three months), the act is necessarily repeated very often, and at very short intervals.

Of course, these enormous copulative powers are not only not examples, but contrasts to what should obtain in the human being. As man has no real rutting season (which in animals appears to be a kind of periodic puberty), there is no occasion, and therefore no provision, for the sudden or excessive employment of his reproductive organs, and consequently any such excesses will be fraught with much danger. The animal, moreover, is deficient in the intellectual qualities of man: propagation of his species appears to be about the most important of the objects of his existence. Man is formed for higher purposes than this. To devote the whole energy of his nature to sensual indulgence is literally to degrade himself to the level of an animal, and to impair or totally destroy those intellectual and moral capacities which distinguish him from the beast. Even in animals a limit is placed to sexual indulgence, and we find in some cases very curious physical provisions for attaining this end.

Among the preparations in the College of Surgeons' Museum may be seen the penis of the young tom-cat. It is described by Owen in the catalogue as "penis of a cat, showing the retroverted callous papillæ of the glans," and it is covered with spinous-looking elevations, which, in connection, must give the female much pain. They disappear in the old tom. The same conformation, or rather to a much greater extent, exists even in the guinea-pig. It is supposed that this rugous state of the male organ excites, if not anger, the greatest pain in the female.

Mr. Thompson, late Superintendent at the Zoological Gardens, corroborates the statement that in the feline race it is the female that makes the noise. He notices it as occurring constantly in leopards, tigers, lions, &c., and as presaging the conclusion of

not allow any horse in his establishment to mount more than twice a day. Two trials are generally advisable, as the first leap is often a failure. Countrytravelling stallions are said to have stimulants given them, and to have as many as two hundred mounts in the season.

the sexual act. He agrees with me that the female requires to lend herself to the act, which is prolonged in this class of animals more than in some others in consequence of the position of her sexual organ.

To some such cause as this, I suppose, must be attributed the singular facts observed by Owen with regard to the copulation of spiders. He says "The young and inexperienced malealways the smaller and weaker of the sexes-has been known to fall a victim, and pay the forfeit of his life for his too rash proposals. The more practised suitor advances with many precautions, carefully feels about with his long legs, his outstretched palpi much agitated. The female indicates acquiescence by raising her fore feet from the web, when the male rapidly advances; his palpi are extended to their utmost, and a drop of clear liquid is ejected from the tip of each clavate end, where it remains attached, the tips themselves immediately coming in contact with a transverse fleshy kind of teat or tubercle, protruded by the female from the base of the under side of the abdomen. After consummation the male is sometimes obliged to save himself by a precipitate retreat. The ordinary savage instincts of the female-etiam in amoribus sava-are apt to return, and she has been known to sacrifice and devour her too-long tarrying or dallying spouse.

It should be remembered that different rules apply to different races. While the ram and the goat can copulate so frequently as to excite our astonishment, one copulative act seems among other creatures, to satisfy all the requirements of nature for a very long period. Thus, for instance, in certain birds coitus is only requisite once in the season. In many parts of the country, where old women keep but one turkey hen, she is sent to the distant cock only once in the season, yet all the eggs laid during the year are fertile ones. In such cases all the eggs must be impregnated at once, or the spermatozoa be hoarded up in the cloaca till they are required.

Birds, I may here state, have no spermatheca, such as is found. in the bee.

The bee is the example which at once suggests itself of one impregnation exhibiting its utmost limit of efficiency.

In the recent work of Siebold, translated by Dallas, entitled "On the True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees," a very interesting account is given of the act in the latter insects:

"It would appear that, whilst in the higher animals the male is the perfect and ruling creature-the bull keeps together, and, as it were, governs the herd of cattle, and the cock does the same by the hens-the reverse of this takes place in insects. In the wasps, hornets, humble bees, ants, and especially in the bees, the perfect female forms the central point, and holds the swarm together." (p. 40.) "Copulation never takes place in the hive. When the queen takes her wedding flight in fine warm weather, she makes her selection of a male bee (drone), and the act takes place in the air. It is very quickly completed, whereas other insects may remain for days united in copulation. When the queen returns to the hive after this single copulative act, the external orifice of the sexual apparatus, which was kept closed before the wedding flight, stands open, and the torn male copulative organs remain sticking in the vagina, and partly protrude from it. This eunuchism, Siebold says, not unfrequently occurs in other insects, as in the beetles. In the particular case examined by Siebold, the seminal receptacle (spermatheca), which is empty in all virgin female insects, was in this queen filled to overflowing with spermatozoids.

"In the copulation of the queen the ovary is not impregnated, but this vesicle, or seminal receptacle, is penetrated or filled by the male semen. By this, much-nay, all-of what was enigmatical is solved, especially how the queen can lay fertile eggs in the early spring, when there are no males in the hive. The supply of semem received during copulation is sufficient for her whole life. The copulation takes place once for all. The queen then never flies out again, except when the whole colony removes. When she has begun to lay, we may without scruple cut off her wings, she will still remain fertile until her death. But in her youth every queen must have flown out at least once, because the fertilization only takes place in the air; therefore no queen which has been lame in her wings from birth can ever be perfectly fertile. I say perfectly fertile, or capable of producing both sexes; for to lay drones' eggs, according to my experience, requires no fecundation at all." (p. 41.)

"After this single fecundation a queen bee can for a long time (four or five years) lay male or female eggs at will; for by filling her seminal receptacle with male semen she has acquired the power of producing female eggs; whilst before copulation, and with an empty seminal capsule, and therefore in the virgin state, she can only lay male eggs." (p. 53.)

The possibility of the semen thus lying in the spermatheca is a fact of great significance and importance, and illustrates the fact that seminal animalcules will live and thrive in the upper