96 SEX 



multitude of ova. But it develops only in 

 those fertilised ova which are going to develop 

 into males. It does so develop because it 

 was to begin with a variation a new depar- 

 ture made by a male-producing gamete. It 

 is a seed which can germinate only in a male 

 soil, which will remain latent in a female soil. 

 Thus a germinal variation in the partheno- 

 genetic ova of bees, which develop into 

 drones, will be unexpressed in the queens, 

 but none the less faithfully handed on by 

 them. 



We suggest, then, the hypothesis, that 

 distinctively masculine characters arose from 

 variations in gametes predisposed or pre- 

 determined to develop into males, that dis- 

 tinctively feminine characters all arose from 

 variations in gametes predisposed or pre- 

 determined to develop into females, and that 

 this primal difference in origin explains (1) 

 why the new gains are often confined in their 

 expression to one sex, and (2) why they hang 

 together in an hereditary congeries. The 

 hypothesis is in no wise inconsistent with 

 the view that many sex-characters are trans- 

 formed species-characters, for the new depar- 

 ture in such cases was the transforming. Nor 

 does the hypothesis conflict in the least with 

 the facts in regard to the importance of 

 hormones in the individual development of 

 the sex-characters, which is a question in the 

 physiology of development. Nor does the 

 hypothesis conflict at all with the view that 

 some process of selection favoured the per- 

 sistence and diffusion of the new character. 

 Nor does the hypothesis conflict at all with 



