experienced biologist could dispense quickly with this argument. Selfpreservation is of course extremely important to many creatures, and allimportant to a few-but extreme selfsacrifice is about as common in Nature. In hundreds of species, it is natural for an individual to destroy itself to produce the next generation.

"But, ah, the next generation," our critic will say. "That's just what I meant in the first place. Homosexuality is unnatural exactly because the chief purpose of Nature-surely you won't try to deny this?-is for every creature to reproduce itself. The purpose of Nature is the preservation of the species. We're right back to the birds and the bees and flowers."

man,

Actually, our critic has a bit to learn about the birds and the bees and the flowers, though it's hard to imagine he can be so ill-informed about the bees at least. Preservation, or reproduction of the species simply does not require that every individual must procreate, or even try to. Every schoolboy knows that in a hive swarming with thousands of bees, only the queen and a few shortlived drones (of no further use to the community) are even capable of sex and reproduction. The rest have other allotted tasks. Like the social insects have learned the advantages of division of labor, and each job, including reproduction, is left to specialists (though in the start of an ant colony, as in early human societies. the reproducer must be a jill-of-all-trades until the colony is large enough to permit division of labor. Then she becomes a mere egg-laying machine.) This should be emphasized. We don't expect every man to be farmer, carpenter, lawyer and all at once. We tend to feel that one good job is about enough for each man or woman. Food is a basic need for all humans (more so than sex) but we no longer expect

everyone to grow their own. Why expect everyone to have children?

Most birds don't push the division of labor very far (not having developed efficient social forms) but it would still be wrong to say that all birds reproduce. Far from it. In many species only a small percentage of male birds actually mate. One rooster can serve a goodly flock of hens-and insists on his domain. What do the other roosters do? The same thing that two hens will also frequently be found doing whenever the cock-of-thewalk is safely out of the way. But does this homosexual activity among chickens interfere with nature's purpose in preserving the species? Of course not. It merely lets off some excess energy which Nature has everywhere supplied in such prodigal quantity. And is this barnyard behavior unnatural? At least it has disturbed the moral composure of many a shy country parson to discover his fowl (who being in a state of innocence are therefore incapable of sin) engaged in actions which our good parson thought were invented by the men of Sodom.

Birds like the prairie chicken are interesting examples. Early in the season, males occupy an ancestral booming ground, each staking out his spot where he struts and flirts and fights with other males, until the hens arrive in a flock. The hens tour the arena and choose a male whose display is particularly impressive. They have intercourse with him, then go on their way, perhaps to another lucky male, or to their individual nestings. Year after year, the same few males, with the most spectacular displays, are likely to receive all the hens' attentions. The rest are left to one another. With colorful variety, this story is repeated among several species of birds. Some fowl do follow the idealized pattern of lifelong or seasonal monogamy-but they are an exception. And homosex-

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