AGE AND SEX. 115 



likely to be as good a dairy cow as one that comes in at five ; 

 whether the milking qualities of one coming in at five arc likely 

 to develop themselves as fully as those of one coming in at four ; 

 whether the dairy qualities of a cow allowed to come in at four 

 will be as fully developed as if she were allowed to come in at 

 three ; whether, if a cow comes in at three, her dairy qualities 

 will be likely to be so fully developed as at two. Mr. Matthew 

 Smith, a former member of this Board, always used to let his 

 heifers come in at two years old. He said he was satisfied they 

 made better dairy cows than they did when not allowed to come 

 in until a later period. 



There is one other idea that I should like to have the opinion 

 of the Board upon : whether if there is no impregnation from 

 the first copulation, that copulation has any effect upon the 

 future progeny. 



Professor Agassiz. I have made no experiments upon that, 

 and a very interesting investigation is suggested by your ques- 

 tion, and it may be experimented upon in a very easy way. 

 Take one of these young virgin animals that has copulated with- 

 out being impregnated, keep her for some time, and then give 

 her another male, and that fact will be ascertained. 



There is one point of this subject which has not been discussed, 

 and I would bring it to the attention of the Board. That is, the 

 age of copulation among animals, and the influence which that 

 has upon the sex of the offspring. There are a good many sta- 

 tistics concerning that derived from the human species. Giitleg 

 the Director of the Astronomical Observatory in Brussels, has 

 published a book entitled, " Statistics of Man," in which he has 

 collected all the facts he could obtain concerning the number of 

 male and female births in different parts of Europe, in all cases 

 where the age of the parents was known ; and he has derived 

 from these observations, which were very numerous, the conclu- 

 sion, that a young male with a more advanced female, produces 

 male offspring ; that young females with older males produce 

 female offspring — on the average, not absolutely ; and that with 

 individuals of the same age, whether younger or older, the 

 probability is that the offspring will be about equally divided. 

 That is all the information I can submit concerning the influ- 

 ence of age upon the sex. Whether there are other influences 

 which determine the sex is another question, which has been 



