ATAVISM OR REVERSION. 151 
common bantam, and there we see that not only certain 
masculine characters proper to the Sebright bantam, 
but other masculine characters derived from the first 
progenitors of the breed removed by a period of above 
sixty years were lying latent in this hen-bird ready to 
be evolved as soon as her ovaria became diseased,” 
(Animals and Plants under Domestication.) 
These examples open up the subject of secondary 
sexual characters. The question of primitive herma- 
phroditism has been already discussed in a preceding 
chapter, and an attempt was made to show that, for a 
brief period at least, the embryo presents sexual parts 
common to the male and female, so that for a time it is 
absolutely impossible to determine the sex. What is 
true of the embryo applies equally to animals normally 
hermaphrodite : no distinctive characters are displayed 
externally. Also in cases of hermaphroditism occurring 
in animals normally bisexual, the secondary sexual 
characters are intermediate to those of the functional 
male and female. It is therefore fairly evident that the 
female, though she differs from the male in the non- 
development of secondary sexual characters, yet pos- 
sesses them in a latent condition ; or, to put the matter 
briefly, they are transmitted, but not developed. 
We must now inquire how it is, that if the female 
possesses all the secondary sexual characters of the male 
in a latent manner, they are prevented manifesting 
themselves. 
When differentiation of sex occurs in animals pre- 
viously hermaphrodite, it involves either the loss of certain 
characters on the part of the female, or the acquisition 
