RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 215 



edly produced in abundance, apparently solely by galvanic 

 processes instituted by Messrs. Crosse and Weekes ; and in 

 one instance, a growth of fungi of a beautiful and previously 

 unknown species, was produced by the last named gentleman, 

 by the same process.* 



5. Particular features of animal organization, which are ap- 

 parently useless and incidental, are also adduced in support 

 of the same theory of law-development. Thus female animals 

 of many species have certain organs which are necessary to 

 their sex ; while the same organs exist rudimentally in the 

 males, to whom they are not necessary. " For example," says 

 the writer, " the mammae of the human female, by whom 

 these organs are obviously required, also exist in the male, 

 who has no occasion for them. It might be supposed that in 

 this case there was a regard to uniformity for mere appear- 

 ance sake ; but that no such principle is concerned, appears 

 from a much more remarkable instance connected with the 

 marsupial animals. The female of that tribe has a process of 

 bone advancing from the pubes, for the support of her pouch ; 

 and this also appears in the male marsupial, who has no pouch, 

 and requires none." Other animals, and especially among 

 those which form links between lower and higher orders in the 

 scale of development, have the rudiments of organs, to them 

 unnecessary, but which were necessary to animals beneath 

 them in the v scale ; but of facts of this kind I need not give 

 further details. These abortive and rudimentary organs, ex- 



* These alleged results of the experiments of Messrs. Crosse and Weekes, were at first 

 almost universally scouted as absurd and impossible ; but subsequent repeated experi- 

 ments, performed during several years, seem to leave no doubt of their reality. I 

 perceive by a late communication, published in the newspapers, from Mr. F. F. Ogden, 

 United States Consul at Liverpool, that that gentleman has recently visited the labora- 

 tory of Mr. Crosse, and became entirely convinced of the truth of the wonderful repre- 

 sentations concerning this newly produced insect. 



