214 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [July 



mals, wliich is normally, though not here, the product of 

 the essential female organ, the ovary. But the anom- 

 alous origin of this particular ovum makes it one of the 

 most interesting specimens that could be seen under the 

 microscope. It also possesses, along with the interest of 

 a rarity and anomaly, the far greater philosophical inter- 

 est which always pertains to the beginning of things. 

 This production of one single microscopic ovum by an 

 elaborate gland that naturally, and here, but for this 

 exception, is devoted to a different and incompatible per- 

 formance, is a simple, uncomplicated first step in a line 

 of evolution, the first link in one of those ''nature's 

 chains," about which we hear so much irrelevant and 

 unreasonable talk. It is the first unit toward the growth 

 of an ovarian body, or rather it is itself an absolutely 

 simple ovarian body, combined with a testis, and the 

 first beginning of the development of a perfect ovary in 

 the place of one of the testes. This is equally true 

 whether we regard the transition from testis to ovary to 

 be an advance to a higher or a degeneration to a lower 

 type. The latter, however, is probably true, since the 

 testis is not only further removed in structure from the 

 primitive and simple types of growth, but is more arti- 

 ficial and elaborate in its function. Evidently the ovum 

 and not the testis represents the multiplication of primi- 

 tive organisms by subdivision before male organs were 

 evolved and male functions established to render possible 

 higher grades of progeny. 



In the vegetable kingdom such anomalies as that on 

 this slide often occur, and the transition is in the same 

 direction as here, from male to female and not the 

 reverse. Thus in the Indian corn, certain portions of 

 one or more of the staminatc spikes that constitute the 

 tuft at the top of the stem sometimes produce ovaries 

 instead of stamens, and ultimately present well-developed 

 kernels of corn. Likewise among the willows it is the 



