THE ANATOMY OF BIEDS. — OOLOGY. 225 



will be seen that they have a long journey to accomplish ; for, liberated in the cloaca of the 

 female, they have to swim through the whole length of the oviduct to the ovary. Besides 

 such physical difference between the male and female Dynamamcebce as I have indicated, they 

 differ in their place and mode of birth ; and in this difference lies the very gist of sex. The 

 original indifferent genital gland above described, arrested, as said, at a certain stage of de- 

 velopment and therefore female — the ovary — produces its eggs from its surface-cells, which 

 subside into the ovarian tissue, and are quietly packed away there as ovarian ova, ready to 

 ripen and awaken to impregnation in due course. The same gland, further developed into a 

 testis, gives active birth to the spermatozoa in the tubules of its comphcated interior tissue. In 

 the former case, the superficial cells slowly ovulate ; in the latter, the cells lining the interior 

 speedily spermate; in a word, the testis is as literally viviparoxis as is the ovary oviparous, — 

 and these contUtions are certainly no insignificant indices of relative development in the scale of 

 being. The spermatozoa appear in some animals to be set free in myriads from the walls of the 

 seminal tubules whence they directly issue; in birds, they are described as appearing coiled or 

 otherwise packed in delicate sperm-cells, which speedily rupture and discharge the creatures in 

 the current of the seminal fluid, where they take up the course and display the energetic actions 

 above noted. Either case has its parallel among ordinary Protozoans ; the former coiTespond- 

 ing to the process of budding or gemmation, the latter to that of interior fission and discharge 

 of numerous progeny by rupture of the envelope. The final conjugation of spermatic filaments 

 with ovarian ova is simple fusion, such as any ordinary sexless amoeboid animal may jjractise to 

 blend its protoplasmic substance with that of another. But there is this difference, that in the 

 case of Dynamamoeba it is a true sexual congress, usually polyandrous, and still more of a 

 one-sided affiiir in that the feu;ale Dynamaniceba is at the time in a more or less quiescent, 

 encysted state. 



Female Organs of Generation. — Tlie connection between the male and female organs 

 of generation is naturally so close that in what has preceded it has been scarcely possible to 

 speak of the former without reference to the female counterparts. I have thus far endeavored 

 to state clearly the nature of the originally sexless genital gland ; the difference in the same 

 gland when afterward sexed male or female ; and the character of the spermatic offspring of 

 the male gland. In reading that lesson the novitiate in such Eleusinian mysteries must not 

 mistake the language I have used to describe the male Dynamamceba, or spermatozoon, as 

 applicable to anything in the development of the female Dynamamoeba, or ovum, into the 

 chick ; for all said thus far only relates to the bringing of the spermatozoon into contact with 

 tlie ovum, preliminary to the initial step of the ovum in its course of development. It is tliis 

 female Dynamamoeba — ih\s primitive ovarian ovum, the germ of the chick, which con-esponds 

 to and is the counterpart of the male Dynamamceba, on meeting and mingling with which 

 fecundation is accomplished; the impregnated ovum being then empowered to take up its 

 marvellous march. Conjugation of the opposite Dynamamoebce occurs either in the ovary or 

 upper part of the oviduct, — most probably the former. One or several spermatozoa — usually 

 more than one — accomplishing their journey up the oviduct, and finding their affinity, 

 insinuate themselves into the substance of the ovum, and die there, dissolved in amorous pain ; 

 that is to say, they melt into the substance of the ovtim. The now fertile result, consisting of 

 the mingled protoplasm of the opposite amoebas, is to all appearance precisely the same as the 

 original infecund ovum — yet there is all the difference in the world, as the result shows. 



The general character of the ovary of a bird has been already indicated Tp. 40). The 

 l)rincipal superficial difference in appearance when the ovary is in functional activity, from the 

 corresponding organ of a mammal, is that the ova develop to such a size, in ripening in the 

 ovary before leaving it for the oviduct, that the organ looks like a btmch of grapes, — very 

 large and conspicuous. The oviduct is the musculo-membranous tube (modified muUerian 



