Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/58

 instances. The preference on the part of the animal for sexual gratification with its own sex instead of with the opposite one, does not necessarily originate in the fact that the male, for instance, has no access to the female for heterosexual copulation. On the contrary his inclination seems deliberate, often to obstination.

In birds the tendency is also general. A great proportion of birds make no distinction whatever between copulating with the male or the female; actively or passively participating in it. The same obedience to either the active or passive role is observed in many common beasts. One of our domestic animals giving us every day the most common proof of making no distinction as to sexual passion, the dog, is rarely willing to be passive in the act; though the dog, occasionally, seems to prefer that form. The word "dog" in all oriental languages, especially in Scriptural usages, is synomous for sodomite, etc.

In the entomological kingdom most interesting habits of deliberate, preferred similisexual intercourse between male insects have been minutely observed and recorded. The reader, is referred to the notes of Professor Karsch of Berlin, and to Kelch, Noel, Osten-Sacken, Lacassagne and others, either directly or as cited by Moll, Ellis, and others when treating of human similisexualism. But the naturalist does not discover any new general principle when studying the instinct in the animal-world. Pliny and Aristotle noted it, and even argued from it toward the general problem.

We may also take note of the fact that botany is not altogether silent on the question of similisexual relations between plants. Something much like (strange as it seems) a deliberate similisexual intention has been studied by several botanists of authority in connection with researches into fertilization and cross-fertilizations.