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Show 1886.] MR. J. B. SUTTON ON ATAVISM. 55/ part of the female, or the acquisition of new characters by the male, or at any rate increased functional importance of certain organs possessed, when in the state of hermaphroditism, by all the forms. By natural selection the male would acquire (or, if already in his possession in a functional condition, they would become more developed) means for seizing and retaining the female, such as the claspers of sharks, the callous pads of frogs, &c. Paternal duty requires the male to protect the young and defend the females from harm ; hence horns, teeth (as in the musk-ox), spurs, tusks, &c. become more developed in him. The duties of the female require her not only to furnish the material out of which the young are to be formed, but in many cases she is required to provide them with nutrition long after they enter the world. The material which the female thus provides is of the very kind necessary, in many instances, to build up such structures as horns, tusks, teeth, and the like. Further, this material is required by the female at the corresponding period of life in which they become developed in the male, viz. on the advent of puberty. W e may state with certainty that a distinct correlation exists between the generative organs of the female and the development of the secondary sexual male characters. The more developed and functional the female reproductive organs become, the less likely is she to manifest the secondary characters of the male. It may be argued, that in some cases the female simulates the male, as in the few examples of female Deer possessing horns. Quite true ; but so long as the female is engaged in the duties of reproduction, these secondary characters are never developed to the same extent as in the functional male. It must also be borne in mind, that in cases where sterile females, or those which have ceased to bear young, put on external male characters, they rarely attain such proportions or beauty as in the male; for in the males the general excitement produced upon the system by sexual passion has a most powerful stimulant effect upon the growth and development of these structures, which is wanting in the female. So that in her attempts to emulate the male she succeeds to a certain degree, but rarely, if ever, attains to so good a condition. Hunter has recorded some experiments which have a bearing on this matter:- " I wished also to ascertain if the parts peculiar to the male could grow on the female, and if the parts of a female, on the contrary, would grow on a male. " Although I had formerly transplanted the testicles of a cock into the abdomen of a hen, and they had sometimes taken root there, but not frequently, and then had never come to perfection, yet the experiment could not, from this cause, answer fully the intended purpose; there is, I believe, a natural reason to believe it could not, and the experiment was therefore disregarded. I took the spur from the leg of a young cock, and placed it in the situation of the spur in the leg of a hen-chicken; it took root, the chicken grew to a hen, but at first no spur grew, while the spur that was left on the |
