Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes. C. Gasquoine Hartley
of life.
When real things are so wonderful, what can we do but note them and try to understand? Not elsewhere in the insect world do we meet with a devotion more complete than that of both the dung-parents; not elsewhere do we find a finer development of intelligence. These two things are related and closely dependent, the one upon the other. It is this fact that now I am seeking to establish. Sacrifice in the parent does not lead to limitation, but to expansion.
At this early stage of life the care of the young is as a rule very slight, and often is confined, as I have shown, to the laying of the eggs in a favourable position, where the grub can find food. “The higher inspirations of the intellect are banished among these insects.” I quote again from Fabre, whose opinion on this question so strongly confirms all that I wish to make clear. He asserts further: “The mother neglects the gentle cares of the cradle, and the prerogatives of the intellect, the best of all, diminish and disappear, so true is it that for animals, even as for ourselves, the family is the source of perfection.” And again: “Placed in charge of the duration of the species, which is of more serious interest than the preservation of individuals, maternity awakens a marvellous foresight in the drowsiest intelligence. … The more maternity asserts itself, the higher does instinct ascend.”
We cannot get away from this; it is one of the unalterable laws of life.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IV
PARENTHOOD AMONG THE REPTILES AND FISHES
A CHAPTER ON GOOD FATHERS
The parental impulse not always fixed in the mother—Among reptiles and fishes, such care as is afforded by parents is given most frequently by the father—Suggested reason for this—Primitive hatching nurseries—Parental care among frogs and toads—Many examples of exemplary fathers—The devotion of the male stickleback—The unnatural conduct of the female stickleback—The emotions of the fish—Fish fathers who guard the nest—Perpetual variety in the actions of even the lowliest parents—Summary—No continuous line of development of instinct in scale of animals—Much baffles our explanations—Suggestions important to my inquiry—Reversal of sex labours—Is it due to failure on the part of the mother—Devoted parents are of high intelligence.
CHAPTER IV
PARENTHOOD AMONG REPTILES AND FISHES
A CHAPTER ON GOOD FATHERS
“Nature is a riddle without a definite solution to satisfy man’s curiosity.”—Maurice Maeterlinck.
In this chapter I shall consider certain examples, which I think are important to establish what we have learnt in our examination of the insects, that the parental impulse was not always fixed in the mother. Among the reptiles and fishes the reverse is true, and what care is afforded to the young is given most frequently by the father.[16]
The bond between the mother and her young is directly dependent on their helplessness and the duration of time during which they require her care and attention. Young reptiles are from birth independent, and, as a consequence, there has been no stimulus to develop maternal solicitude. Between mother and offspring there are no ties of affection save in one or two exceptional cases.
Young alligators, for example, are guarded by their mothers and owe more to her than they can ever know. She prepares a hatching nursery by scraping together a large mound of leaves, twigs, and fine earth, and upon this mound the eggs are placed about eight inches from the surface. Then the mother digs a hole in the river bank, close by, and here she waits and watches to protect her children.
A more advanced form of nursery building is practised by the tortoise, who prepares a sort of nest with considerable care, which she afterwards cunningly conceals. But when once the eggs are safe she shows no further interest in the safety of the nest.[17]
Most snakes bury their eggs and then leave them. But a more enduring maternal interest is felt by the mother python; she coils her body around her future family and jealously guards them during the period of incubation, refusing all food and never leaving her duty.
A similar guardianship is shown to young crocodiles by their mothers. The home is prepared by digging a deep hole in the sand in which the eggs are placed, and during the period of incubation each mother sleeps in guard above her family. The naturalist Voeltzkow, to prove the reality of one mother crocodile’s solicitude, built a fence around the nest just before the hatching time. Each night on her return, the mother broke down the fence, though each time it was made stronger than the last. Finally the nest was found to be deserted, and then it was discovered that this intelligent and persecuted mother had dug a hole beneath the fence and thence had led her brood away to safety.
It is impossible to admire sufficiently such a case as this one, where we see so clearly the driving power of maternal solicitude in quickening the intelligence of even the lowliest mothers. Such cases are, however, few in number out of the 2,600 species of reptiles of whom the majority are unnatural parents.
But again surprises await us. Many frogs and toads, both the mothers and the fathers, show a really marked development of the familial instincts.[18] An illustration of this care is furnished by a large tree-frog (Hyla faber) of Brazil, commonly known as the Ferreiro, “the smith,” from its strange voice resembling the mallet of a smith, slowly and regularly striking on a metal plate. This frog prepares a nursery in the shallow waters of the ponds, where a basin-shaped hollow is dug in the mud. The building is done by the mother, the material removed being used to form a wall, circular in shape, which is carried up to the surface of the water. In this cavity the eggs are placed, protected against the attacks of aquatic insects and fishes. A Japanese tree frog (Rhacophorus schlegelii) builds a similar nest, but here the mother lines the walls of her nursery with a secretion, a kind of milk food, from her own body, which by rapid movements of her feet is worked into a froth, and in the midst of this foamy mass the eggs are laid. More remarkable is the nursery building of the “Wollunnkukk” frog (Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis) of Paraguay, whose habits were noted by Dr. Budgett during the exploration of the Paraguayan Chaco. “Whilst sitting near the water’s edge he saw a female carrying a male upon her back. At last she climbed up the stem of a plant, reached out and caught hold of an overhanging leaf and climbed on to it. Both then caught hold of its edges and held them together; and into the funnel thus formed the female poured her eggs, the male fertilising them as they passed. The jelly surrounding the eggs served as a cement to hold the edges of the leaves together. Then, moving up a little further, the process was repeated until the leaf was full, and about a hundred eggs had been enclosed.”[19]
A similar leaf nest is made by a Brazilian frog, known as Ihering’s frog (P. Iheringí), while a home of more elaborate construction, in which several leaves are used, is prepared by Savage’s leaf-frog (P. Sauvagii).
It should be noted that in these cases the care of the parents is confined to the providing of a nursery; when once this is done the young are abandoned. But many frogs and toads do much more than this, and one or other parents, most often the father, guard their offspring with jealous care. A Papuan frog-father, for instance, takes up the duties of a nurse; and when the eggs are laid, he sits upon them, holding the mass with both hands. And this vigil he keeps during the whole time while the young are undergoing growth, passing through the larval and tadpole stage.
We must own that such a father acts with singular devotion. It should be noted that seventeen eggs only are laid by the mother, a much smaller number than is common among the species where neither parent affords any kind of guardianship. This is what we should expect. Nature has different ways of gaining the same end. Life must be carried on, that is all that matters—an incessant renewal, an