88 INFLUENCE OF HORMONES 



They regard the condition of the ovary as insuf- 

 ficient to explain the development of the male 

 characters, and suggest that such birds are really 

 hermaphrodite, a male element being possibly con- 

 cealed in a neighbouring organ such as the adrenal 

 or kidney. This hypothesis is not supported by 

 observation of testicular tissue in any such case, 

 but by the condition found in a hermaphrodite 

 specimen of the common fowl described in the paper. 

 This bird presented the fully developed comb and 

 wattles and the spurs of the cock, but the tail was 

 quite devoid of curved or sickle feathers, and 

 resembled that of the hen. Internally there were 

 two oviducts, that of the left side normally de- 

 veloped, that of the right diminutive and less than 

 half the full length. The gonad of the left side had 

 the tubular structure of a testis, but showed no signs 

 of active spermatogenesis, but in its lower part con- 

 tained two ova. The organ of the right side was 

 somewhat smaller, it had the same tubular structure, 

 and in one small part the tubules were larger, showed 

 division of nuclei (mitotic figures), and one of them 

 showed active spermatogenesis. 



In discussing Heredity and Sex in 1909, 1 Bateson 

 referred to the effects of castration as evidence 

 that in different types sex may be differently con- 

 stituted. Castration, he urged, in the male verte- 

 brate on the whole leads merely to the non-appear- 

 ance of male features, not to the assumption of 

 female characters, while injury or disease of the 

 ovaries may lead to the assumption of male char- 

 acters by the female. This was supposed to support 

 the view that the male is homozygous in sex, the 



1 MendeVs Principles of Heredity. Camb. Univ. Press, 1909. 



