THE ORIGIN OF GYNANDROMORPHS. 



19 



pronouncement as to the sense in which the phrase is employed; 

 otherwise it is Httle more than a play on words. For instance, when 

 one X chromosome is present the individual is a male, which means 

 that one X plus all the rest of the cell makes a male, and when two 

 X's are present, these two plus all the rest of the cell make a female. 

 In what sense can such a statement be twisted to mean that each such 

 combination contains in a latent condition the opposite condition? 

 Compare the facts with a similar chemical situation and the absurdity 

 of the inclusion hypothesis is evident. Maltose has the formula 

 C12H22O11 and glucose the formula C6H12O6. One is twice the other 

 minus one H2O. To state that maltose contains glucose latent or that 

 glucose contains maltose latent is obviously absurd, yet this does not 

 differ much from the view that each sex contains the opposite one in 

 latent form. 



De Meijere thinks that gynandromorphs can be explained in "that 

 the activation of the opposite sex (opposite to the one already under 

 way) has started in, relatively later, after all the parts have taken 

 on their definite positions ; many of the parts have gone too far in the 

 first direction, i. e., they are too old, but those that have not may be 

 turned aside and produce the oppo- ^ ^ 



site results."^ This view is offered 

 to account for mosaics of sex char- 

 acter. The bilateral gynandro- 

 morph, he supposes, owes its origin 

 to the above changes having taken 

 place very early, even at the first 

 division. De Meijere thinks ap- 

 parently of effects being produced 



by external factors of some unknown kind rather than internal ones 

 connected with a sex mechanism. His idea is too vague to be of use 

 and too remote from present-day knowledge about sex determination 

 to call for extended criticism. 



. Arnold Lang, accepting the same general conception of sex and 

 expressing what he beheved to be the real relations by means of the 

 formulae that Goldschmidt had advocated, offered another possible 

 interpretation of gynandromorphs that is superficially exactly like 

 the theory of chromosomal ehmination which the results in Drosophila 

 show to hold for this insect. In fact, Lang's view, if divested of the 

 unnecessary encumbrance of De Meijere's conception and of Gold- 

 schmidt's formulae, is then identical with the theory of chromosomal 

 elimination. For example, Lang represents the fertilized egg (one 

 that will give rise to a female) by the scheme shown in text-figure 4. 

 The primary sex characters for the male are M carried by a pair of 



TEXT-FIOURE8 4 AND 5. 



* See Goldschmidt'a view in respect to the rate of development of male and female orgaoa in 

 the intersexes of the gipsy moth. 



