1886. ] MR. J. B. SUTTON ON ATAVISM. 557 
part of the female, or the acquisition of new characters by the male, 
or at any rate increased functional importance of certain organs 
possessed, when in the state of hermaphroditism, by all the forms. 
By natural selection the male would acquire (or, if already in his 
possession in a functional condition, they would become more 
developed) means for seizing and retaining the female, such as the 
claspers of sharks, the callous pads of frogs, &c. Paternal duty 
requires the male to protect the young and defend the females from 
harm; hence horns, teeth (as in the musk-ox), spurs, tusks, &e. 
become more developed in him. 
The duties of the female require her not only to furnish the 
material out of which the young are to be formed, but in many cases 
she is required to provide them with nutrition long after they enter 
the world. The material which the female thus provides is of the 
very kind necessary, in many instances, to build up such structures 
as horns, tusks, teeth, and the like. Further, this material is 
required by the female at the corresponding period of life in which 
they become developed in the male, viz. on the advent of puberty. 
We may state with certainty that a distinct correlation exists 
between the generative organs of the female and the development of 
the secondary sexual male characters. The more developed and 
functional the female reproductive organs become, the less likely is 
she to manifest the secondary characters of the male. It may be 
argued, that in some cases the female simulates the male, as in the 
few examples of female Deer possessing horns. Quite true; but so 
long as the female is engaged in the duties of reproduction, these 
secondary characters are never developed to the same extent asin the 
functional male. It must also be borne in mind, that in cases where 
sterile females, or those which have ceased to bear young, put on 
external male characters, they rarely attain such proportions or 
beauty as in the male; for in the males the general excitement 
produced upon the system by sexual passion has a most powerful 
stimulant effect upon the growth and development of these structures, 
which is wanting inthe female. So that in her attempts to emulate 
the male she succeeds to a certain degree, but rarely, if ever, attains 
to so good a condition. 
Hunter has recorded some experiments which have a bearing on 
this matter :— 
**j wished also to ascertain if the parts peculiar to the male could 
grow on the female, and if the parts of a female, on the contrary, 
would grow on a male. 
** Although I had formerly transplanted the testicles of a cock into 
the abdomen of a hen, and they had sometimes taken root there, but 
not frequently, and then had never come to perfection, yet the 
experiment could not, from this cause, answer fully the intended 
purpose ; there is, I believe, a natural reason to believe it could not, 
and the experiment was therefore disregarded. I took the spur 
from the leg of a young cock, and placed it in the situation of the 
spur in the leg of a hen-chicken ; it took root, the chicken grew to 
a hen, but at first no spur grew, while the spur that was left on the 
