294 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



wliicli rose in the scale and became locomotive, should re- 

 tain the same habit; and they would approach the female 

 as closely as possible, in order not to risk the loss of the 

 fertilizing element in a long passage of it through the water. 

 With some few of the lower animals, the females alone are 

 fixed, and the males of these must be the seekers. But it 

 is difficult to understand why the males of species, of which 

 the progenitors were primordially free, should invariably 

 have acquired the habit of approaching the females, instead 

 of being approached by them. But in all cases, in order 

 that the males should seek efficiently, it would be necessary 

 that they should be endowed with strong passions; and the 

 acquirement of such passions would naturally follow from 

 the more eager leaving a larger number of offspring than 

 the less eager. 



The great eagerness of the males has thus indirectly led 

 to their much more frequently developing secondary sexual 

 characters than the females. But the development of such 

 characters would be much aided if the males were more 

 liable to vary than the females — as I concluded they were— 

 after a long study of domesticated animals. Von Nathusius, 

 who has had very wide experience, is strongly of the same 

 opinion." Good evidence also in favor of this conclusion 

 can be produced by a comparison of the two sexes in man- 

 kind. During the Novara Expedition" a vast number of 

 measurements was made of various parts of the body in 

 different races, and the men were found in almost every 

 case to present a greater range of variation than the women ; 

 but I shall have to recur to this subject in a future chapter. 

 Mr. J. Wood," who has carefully attended to the variation 

 of the muscles in man, puts in italics the conclusion that 



«« "Vortrage fiber Viehzucht," 1812, p. 63. 



»3 "Eeise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil," 1867, s. 216-269. The 

 results were calculated by Dr. 'Weiabach from measurements made by Drs. 

 K. Scherzer and Schwarz. On the greater variability of the males of domesti- 

 cated animals, see my "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 

 vol. ii., 1868, p. 15. 



^ "Proceedings Royal Soc," vol. xvi., July 1868, pp. 519 and 524. 



