78 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



the male and female organs are combined in a single 

 flower, making a true hermaphrodite. 



Sex in Animals.— As previously remarked, individ- 

 uals of opposite sex usually differ much more than in 

 the character of their sexual organs. Among higher 

 animals, the male is usually larger, stronger, and of 

 coarser structure than the female. The same contrast 

 is observed in their mental characters. With lower 

 animals, especially insects, the opposite is often ob- 

 served. The female spider is many times larger than 

 the male. The male ant is small in size when compared 

 with the female. Nevertheless, in all classes of animals, 

 the difference in the structure and the functions of the 

 sexual organs is the chief distinguishing characteris- 

 tic. These differences are not so great, however, as 

 they might at first appear. The male and female or- 

 gans of reproduction in man and other animals, which 

 seem so dissimilar, when studied in the light shed upon 

 this subject by the science of embryology, are found 

 to be wonderfully alike in structure, differing far more 

 in appearance than in reality, and being little more 

 than modifications of one general plan. Every organ 

 to be found in the one sex has an analogue in the other 

 which is complete in every particular, corresponding 

 in function, in structure, and usually in position. 



Other Sexual Differences.— In this country there 

 is between three and four inches' difference in height, 

 and about twenty pounds' diiference in weight between 

 the average man and the average woman, the average 

 man being about five feet, eight inches in height, and 

 weighing one hundred and forty-five pounds ; while the 

 average woman is five feet, four and one-half inches 

 in height, and weighs one hundred and twenty-five 

 pounds. The relation of the sexes in height and weight 



