Ovations On Other Sites - Ovation 15 Ovations 06Cake Placebo chose the topics covered by Ovations On Other Sites - Ovation 15 without reflecting upon the choices others have made. Flapping your arms and quacking like a duck when people try to run you over in their SUVs is another way to look at things in a different light. |
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On January 21st we made a long and tedious march, rising all the time among slippery rocks along precipices, or sinking in swampy mud on the narrow trail. Picturesque waterfalls of great height were visible in volcanic vents, some square, others crescent-shaped, on the face of the mountain. The torrents, swollen by the heavy rains, were difficult to cross, my mules on several occasions being nearly swept away by the foaming current. We sank in deep red slush and in deep holes filled with water, but continued all the time to ascend a gentle but continuous incline. We travelled that day from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening, rain pouring down upon us all the time. We were simply smothered in mud from head to foot. |
Among many animals, however, the females at first withdraw from the males; they are coy, and have to be sought out, and sometimes held by force. This tracking and grasping of the females by the males has given rise to many different characters in the latter, as, for instance, the larger eyes of the male bee, and especially of the males of the Ephemerids (May-flies), some species of which show, in addition to the usual compound eyes, large, so-called turban-eyes, so that the whole head is covered with seeing surfaces. In these species the females are very greatly in the minority (1-100), and it is easy to understand that a keen competition for them must take place, and that, when the insects of both sexes are floating freely in the air, an unusually wide range of vision will carry with it a decided advantage. Here again the actual adaptations are in accordance with the preliminary postulates of the theory. We do not know the stages through which the eye has passed to its present perfected state, but, since the number of simple eyes (facets) has become very much greater in the male than in the female, we may assume that their increase is due to a gradual duplication of the determinants of the ommatidium in the germ-plasm, as I have already indicated in regard to sense-organs in general. In this case, again, the selection-value of the initial stages hardly admits of doubt; better vision _directly_ secures reproduction. |
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