SOME STRANGE MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS 267 



when adult. It is still a moot point whether, in the 

 earHer stages of development, chance decides whether 

 the sex shall be male or female, or, at any rate, whether 

 the growing body is potentially male or female, till the die 

 is cast by some as yet undiscovered factor ; or whether 

 this is determined from the very beginning of germinal 

 life. In many of the lower animals, as among the Mollusca 

 and some of the insects, each individual is as much male 

 as female, and it is from a condition such as this that 

 parthenogenesis probably had its rise. 



These two groups are selected here because they, more 

 than any others in like case, afford some extremely 

 interesting gradations in this strange phenomena of 

 what is to be regarded as the degeneration of sexual 

 individuality, for each contains some members wherein 

 the sexes are separate, and in these cases sexual desire 

 is present in varying degrees. In some it is associated 

 with very remarkable phenomena. 



Among the Mollusca the Octopuses afford one of the 

 most striking illustrations of such phenomena. In these 

 creatures one of the sucker-bearing arms is more or less 

 completely transformed to subserve the ends of sexual 

 congress. Without entering into the technical details 

 of the changes, it will suffice to remark that it is modified 

 in such a way as to allow the transference of the sperma- 

 tozoa from the body cavity wherein they are formed, 

 to the arm near, or at, the tip of which they are stored 

 in a special sac or " spermatophore," and such modified 

 arms are said to be " hectocotylized." This extraordinary 

 modification attains its maximum development in the 

 celebrated Argonaut, and one or two of the more typical 

 Octopuses. In the Argonaut this arm does not make its 

 appearance until sexual maturity has been attained, when 



