574 
has for one of its objects to make known to 
the public of the two Americas the value of 
French general culture and practical instruc- 
tion. 
Dr. Cuartes E. MarsHaut, professor of 
bacteriology and hygiene in the Michigan 
Agricultural College, has accepted an ap- 
pointment as director of the graduate school 
and professor of microbiology, at the Massa- 
chusetts Agricultural College. He will begin 
his new duties on September 1. The Grad- 
uate School of the Massachusetts Agricul- 
tural College is an outgrowth of graduate 
work started under the direction of Professor 
Charles H. Fernald nearly eleven years ago. 
Four years ago the school was organized with 
Professor Fernald as director, and since his 
retirement Dr. Henry T. Fernald has been 
acting director. During the existence of the 
school fifteen men have been given the degree 
of master of science, and seven, the degree of 
doctor of philosophy. At the present time 
sixteen men are enrolled as graduate students. 
It is the intention of the trustees to develop 
the activities of the school. 
Dr. Raymonp A. Pearson, recently Com- 
missioner of Agriculture for the state of New 
York, has accepted the presidency of the 
Iowa State College of Agriculture at Ames. 
Dr. Pearson has been granted leave of absence 
for the summer and will visit agricultural col- 
leges in Europe. 
Dr. THomas McCraz, A.B., M.D., Toronto, 
associate professor of medicine at the Johns 
Hopkins University, has been appointed pro- 
fessor of medicine in Jefferson Medical Col- 
lege, Philadelphia, to fill the chair vacant by 
the resignation of Professor James C. Wilson. 
Av the University of London Professor F. 
G. Donnan, F.R.S., has been appointed to the 
chair of general chemistry at University Col- 
lege, in succession to Sir William Ramsay. 
Dr. L. N. G. Filon, F.R.S., has been ap- 
pointed to the Goldsmid chair of applied 
mathematics and mechanics to succeed Pro- 
fessor Karl Pearson, who resigned this chair 
on his appointment to the Galton chair of 
eugenics. 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 902 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 
ARE HORNS IN SHEEP A SEX-LIMITED CHARACTER 2 
ARKELL and Davenport in Science for 
March 8, 1912, answer this question in the 
affirmative on the basis of certain crosses 
which they have made between horned and 
hornless races. In doing so they eall in ques- 
tion the authenticity of a statement made by 
me in a recent publication as follows: 
In merino sheep the male has well-developed 
horns, but the female is hornless; yet if the male 
is castrated early in life no horns are formed. 
They comment thus: 
He gives no reference for the last statement; 
and in view of the variability of the horned con- 
dition in the males of the ‘‘merinos’’ the condi- 
tions of the experiments would have to be care- 
fully considered before such a result could be ac- 
cepted as settling the question of the dependence 
of horns in heterozygous males upon a secretion 
from the testis. 
In reply to this criticism, I beg to say that 
I gave no authority for the statement in ques- 
tion because I can myself vouch for it. I 
grew up on a farm where Merino sheep were 
kept in considerable numbers. From my 
earliest recollection until I was 21 years old I 
saw the operation of castration practised each 
year on 50 or more ram lambs and its effects 
were perfectly familiar to me. The result is 
exactly that stated. If the male is castrated 
early in life, say within a month after birth, 
no horns develop. If castration has been de- 
layed for two or three months, the horns begin 
to grow, but castration then promptly arrests 
their growth. I can recall but one exceptional 
ease in the hundreds that came under my ob- 
servation. In that case the horns continued 
to grow for some weeks. When this case was 
observed, the animal was caught and found to 
have been imperfectly castrated. A second 
operation caused cessation of the horn de- 
velopment. My father used registered Atwood 
Merino rams, and his ewes were pure bred. 
The ewes were regularly hornless as they are 
typically in this breed. See figures in Robert 
Wallace’s (1907) “‘ Farm Live Stock of Great 
Britain,” p. 592. The males were as regu- 
larly horned, if not castrated. We usually 
