SEX. 89 



CHAPTEE VI. 



Sex. 



With regard to the laws which regulate the sex of 

 progeny very little is known. Many and extensive 

 observations have been made, but without arriving at 

 any definite conclusions. Nature seems to have pro- 

 vided that the number of either sex produced, shall be 

 nearly equal, but by what means this result is attained, 

 has not been discovered. Some physiologists think the 

 sex decided by the influence of the sire, others think it 

 due to the mother. Sir Everard Home believed the 

 ovum or germ, previous to impregnation to be of no 

 sex, but so formed as to be equally fitted to become 

 either male or female, and that it is the process of 

 impregnation which marks the sex and forms the gen- 

 erative organs ; that before the fourth month the sex 

 cannot be said to be confirmed, and that it will prove 

 male or female as the tendency to the paternal or ma- 

 ternal type may preponderate. 



Mr. T. A. Knight* was of opinion that the sex of 

 progeny depended upon the influence of the female 



* Philosophical Trvisactions, 1809. 



