J 98 Scientific Intelligence. --^Zoologij. 



to them. Milk was offered to the young asses which had been 

 separated from their dam for some time, and they drank it with 

 pleasure. It was then offered to a young mule, and to a horse 

 five years of age ; both drank of it. Being offered to a monkey, 

 It seemed never to have taken enough. Pigs, dogs, cats, and 

 rats, drink milk with avidity. " I will quote, on this occasion, 

 a curious fact, but little known, that of a goat, which sucked 

 itself, and which was, with difficulty, broken off* this bad habit." 

 Now, as there are so many animals which are fond of milk, with- 

 out having preserved the habit of drinking it, it will not seem 

 surprising that the giraffe, a herbivorous animal, which has been 

 continually supplied with this drink, should prefer it to all others. 

 — Mem. du Museum, xiv. p. 74. 



28. On the predestination qftlie Sex; by M. Hufeland.— In a 

 memoir printed in his Medical Journal, in 1819, M. Hufeland 

 shewed that the numerical relation of the individuals of the two 

 sexes in man (21 : 20) is the same over the whole surface of the 

 globe ; that this relation does not depend either upon climate or 

 planetary influences, or upon the generative act, but that the 

 sexual difference already exists in the germ formed beforehand 

 in the mother, and that the fecundating principle has only to 

 give animation to it. To the recent inquiries made in France, 

 by MM. Olivier, Prevost, Dumas, and Girou de Buzamique, 

 and the conclusions which they have elicited, M. Hufeland op- 

 poses several objections, viz. 1^^, The sexual union of a middle 

 aged man with a younger woman, being, for very natural rea- 

 sons, the most frequent of all, there ought to result a very great 

 excess of male children, which, however, is by no means the case ; 

 9dy In long wars, where the class of young men is nearly ex- 

 hausted in a nation, a marked excess ought to manifest itself on 

 the side of the female sex, which, however, is never observed; 

 Sc?, The conjugal unions in which the parties are of equal age, 

 ought to produce an equal number of male and female descen- 

 dants, through the whole duration of life, which is not the case. 

 ^th. Experience shews conjugal unions of middle aged men with 

 young women, by which, however, there have been only female 

 children ; 5th, Even allowing all the combinations established up- 

 on the influence of the relative age of the father and mother, 

 they are not sufficient to explain the constant relation of 21 : SO 



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