ANIMAL COURTSHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 April 1925, Page 10

ANIMAL COURTSHIP.

HOW FLIES ATTRACT THEIR MATES.

Very curious details'in the domesticlife of some of the lower land insects and animals was disucssed by Mr. Julian Huxley in a lecture he gave at the London Koval Institution on ‘-The Courtship of Animals and its Biological Bearings.” The functions of courtship were acted very largely, Mr. Huxley explained, through the mind of trie opposite sex, but in the much lower forms of anima| life courtship existed scarcely at all, and it was only when the higher marine worms were considered that there was any definite evidence of the other than mere haphazard mating. In these the signs of having any definite brain were characterised by the gathering that took place at very definite seasons and states of tide. A great, conglomeration of males and females would be formed, and there would be seen the curious antics of the male worms who danced what might termed a jig round one female in the centre. As many as ten or eleven worms had been observed going through this curious ceremonial at the same time. . The crab R came next in the clearness of possessing .courtship habits, and then the spiders. The male hunting spider was almost a microbe compared with the female, and it was a very common thing in certain species for the female to devour her mate. In tilovertures of the mating of these insects there was one special feature to noticeand this was the definite signs of interpretation of sound. The male in approaching the female’s web would on putting his foot on the first threads, cause a certain vibration of them which the female could at once define as not being caused by a fly- or other form of food. This was an actual case of “the message of love coming along the wires.” - ' In the locust arid cricket was demonstrated the fact that in these a'nimals sounds have a very definite biological function in the former a case of instrumental, and the latter of wind music. Certain butterflies used scent as the attractive influence for females, and were equipped with scentspraying apparatus secreted either in the wings or legs. Butterflies were the only mammal where the scent secreted was not offensive to the human individual.

The empis fly carried no persona] adornment, but instead gripped by its legs a large white, foamy substance which, was secreted in it s tissues. On this was-often placed a, smaller flv or other insect which jt would offer to the female that attracted it. most. In a kindred species one came upon the first and very rudimentary form of art. Instead of holding a fly as an offering, it. wonjd hold some bright object, such as a piece of bright paper or leaf. On being put into a matchbox a carnivorous. fly of a kindred order was given an insect which lie immediately proceeded to devour. A . second time an insect was given to him, hut at the same time a female was introduced. This time instead of taking it. himself he immediately wrapped it up in silk and laid it before the female, and when the operation was repeated with the female withdrawn he again packed it up and hunted for the female which had been present.. In conclusion, Mr. Huxley pointed out that, apart from the biological meaning of all the colour of birds’and insects, if the world was deprived of them, there would not he left nne-tenth of the beauty which characterised the country through these fornig of animal life. —Morning Post.