ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 333 



Underfeeding Rats. — Chester A. ^tev^ab.t (Amer. Jo urn. Physiol., 

 1919, 48, 67-78). The underfed new-born rats become relatively 

 long-tailed. In animals kept by underfeeding at birth weight the head 

 increases about 45 p.c. in weight, compensated by corresponding 

 decrease in the trunk and extremities. The visceral group increases 

 46 p.c, the integument 25 p.c, the musculature and skeleton (together) 

 6 p.c, counterbalanced by a corresponding decrease of 59 p.c. in the 

 " remainder." J. A. T. 



Gonads as Controllers of Characteristics. — Carl R. Moore 

 {Journ. Exper. ZooL, 1919, 28, 459-67, 1 fig.). After early removal 

 of the gonads the growth of the male is higher than that of the female. 

 To this in the experiments made (on the white rat) there were no 

 exceptions. There is, therefore, a real difference (of metabolism ?) in 

 the two sexes, which may represent an inherited difference from the 

 original ova, but this difference may be accentuated by the presence of 

 the ovary in the female. Riddle's researches on differences of meta- 

 bolism in the two kinds of ova and in the two sexes are of first-class 

 importance, but in speaking of " Riddle's Theory of Sex,"' it should be 

 remembered (the recorder thinks) that the suggestion of correlating sex 

 differences with fundamental differences in metabolism was elaborated 

 by Patrick Geddes thirty years ago and more. J. A. T. 



Sex-characters and Sex-glands. — A. LiPscntiTz (MT. Nat. Geo. 

 Bern, 1917, xxv.-xxvii.). Confirmation of the view of Steinach and 

 others that interstitial cells forming a " puberty-gland " in mammalian 

 testes and ovaries exert a formative influence on sex-characters. The 

 action of the secretions is specific When Steinach implanted ovaries 

 in early-castrated males of rats and guinea-pigs, these males were 

 feminized, their nervous system was eroticized in a feminine direction, 

 the mammary glands were stimulated, milk was secreted, the growth of 

 the penis was inhibited. Similarly, females were masculinized. Lip- 

 schiitz observed a penis-like growth of the chtoris. Perhaps what 

 occurs is that an asexual soma becomes in a castrated animal like the 

 form common to the two sexes. It has been shown by Goodale and 

 Pezard that a young cock castrated keeps the characteristic plumage 

 and grows spurs, but does not gain the normal comb and wattles. A 

 young hen castrated gains masculine plumage and spurs. Thus the two 

 results are closely alike. What in one sex may be independent of the 

 stimulus of the puberty-gland may be in the other sex much changed 

 by the same influence. So Lipschiitz distinguishes for all Vertebrates : 

 (1) sex-characters independent of the puberty-gland, but dependent on 

 the asexual embryonic epuipment ; and (2) sex-characters dependent on 

 the influence of the puberty-glands, whether that be stimulating or 

 inhibiting, the material being again that afforded by the asexual 

 embryonic equipment. J. A. T. 



Relation of Ovary to Causation of Sex. — John G. Murray, 

 JuN. {Bull. Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1919, 29, 275-81). In reference 

 to the theory of E. Rumley Dawson that in man the supplying ovary is 

 the essential factor in the causation of sex, the author has investigated 



