Читать книгу Essays of a Biologist онлайн

29 страница из 50

Even such physically well-organized creatures as Crustacea stand at an amazingly low mental level. The other day I was reading a careful account of experiments on the behaviour of crabs. The method by which the sexes recognize each other is so crude that I am not sure whether it deserves the term recognition at all. Before mating, which takes place immediately after a moult, the female is carried about for some time in the claws of the male. The mature males will attempt to lift up and carry off any members of the same species, male or female: but the only ones which will permit themselves to be thus carried about are females just before moulting. Hence by a general instinct to lift any members of the same species on the part of the males, and on the part of the females an instinct to allow themselves to be lifted when in the physiological condition which precedes moulting, the required end is brought about. But of any mental operation such as is involved in sex-recognition in man or any other mammal, there is no evidence.

Правообладателям