WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 152, 3 December 1914, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

CUPID IN THE LABORATORY. . PITILESS DISSECTION. Wordsworth wrote contemptuously of ft type of scientist who would "peep and botanise in liia mother's grave." It ia science first—and sentiment a second. It was Cupid's turn for a cold analysis long ago—and the examination continues. "STRANGE ANTICS." An idea, an impression, or a stimulus, must be conveyed by the male to the female before the relation of wooer and wooed is established between them '(remarks Current Opinion.) The active agent is the male. Hence his greater motility. The.se are the newer generalisations on the subject of mating and conjugation. They tend to overthrow a delusion still too widespread regarding the courtship of man. He is said to be at a' disadvantage in relation to the human female as compared with the birds and the beasts, because he has nothing but a beard as an instrument of charm. The fallacy here is due to a neglect of the stimulus, the impression, the idea, derivable by the female from the prtfsimity of the male, from the fact of his approach, whether the female be highly organised, like a mammal, or be little more than a protozoa. The wooing of a maid by a man and the various poses and "strange antics"—we quote from a paper by Sir Ray Lankester in the London Telegraph —to which lovesick men. and women resort are represented by similar behav- ' ioiLr among animals, and that too. notonly among higher animals jllied to mail, but even among minute and obscure insects and molluscs. In fact, declares the eminent British scientist, the elementary principle of courtship —the pursuit of the female by the male —is observed amongst the lowest unicellular organisms, the protozoa, and the protophyta, and it holds among plants as well as among animals. GOOD-BYE, ROMANCE! "It is when we have to do with actively moving animals that 'courtship' becomes existence," declares Sir Ray. "It has many features and phases, which may be classed as (1) simple discovery of the female and presentation of himself by the courting maW; (2) attempts to secure the, female's attention, and to fascinate or more or less hypnotise her by display of brilliant colors or unusual or astonishing poses or movements (such, as dancing) on the part of the male; (3) 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 recognised 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 h.glkr forms, the birds and the liiainm lis, that there are the most elaborate ; nd intelligible proceedings in regard to v.lie attraction of the female. But when we compare what birds do, or, in t'ac., what any animal docs with what mar does, we must remember that man has, as compared with them, an immense memory, and has also consciousness.

"But in many things he is still entirely guided by unreasoning mechanical instinct, and in others lie 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 inought 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."