Chap. XIV. 



SEXUAL LIMITATION. 



73 



though colour-blindness thus generally clings to the male sex, nevertheless, 

 in one instance in which it first appeared in a female, it was transmitted 

 during five generations to thirteen individuals, all of whom were females. 

 A hemorrhagic diathesis, often accompanied by rheumatism, has been known 

 to affect the males alone during five generations, being transmitted, however, 

 through the females. It is said that deficient phalanges in the fingers have 

 been inherited by the females alone during ten generations. In another 

 case, a man thus deficient in both hands and feet, transmitted the pecu- 

 liarity to his two sons and one daughter; but in the third generation, 

 out of nineteen grandchildren, twelve sons had the family defect, whilst 

 the seven daughters were free. In ordinary cases of sexual limitation, the 

 sons or daughters inherit the peculiarity, whatever it may be, from their 

 father or mother, and transmit it to their children of the same sex ; but 

 generally with the hemorrhagic diathesis, and often with colour-blindness, 

 and in some other cases, the sons never inherit the peculiarity directly 

 from their fathers, but the daughters, and the daughters alone, transmit 

 the latent tendency, so that the sons of the daughters alone exhibit it. 

 Thus, the father, grandson, and great-great-grandson will exhibit a pecu- 

 liarity, — the grandmother, daughter, and great-granddaughter having 

 transmitted it in a latent state. Hence we have, as Mr. Sedgwick remarks, 

 a double kind of atavism or reversion ; each grandson apparently receiving 

 and developing the peculiarity from his grandfather, and each daughter, 

 apparently receiving the latent tendency from her grandmother. 



From the various facts recorded by Dr. Prosper Lucas, Mr. Sedgwick, 

 and others, there can be no doubt that peculiarities first appearing in either 

 sex, though not in any way necessarily or invariably connected with that 

 sex, strongly tend to be inherited by the offspring of the same sex, but are 

 often transmitted in a latent state through the opposite sex. 



Turning now to domesticated animals, we find that certain characters 

 not proper to the parent-species are often confined to, and inherited by, 

 one sex alone ; but we do not know the history of the first appearance of 

 such characters. In the chapter on Sheep, we have seen that the males 

 of certain races differ greatly from the females in the shape of their horns, 

 these being absent in the ewes of some breeds, in the development of fat 

 in the tail in certain fat-tailed breeds, and in the outline of the forehead. 

 These differences, judging from the character of the allied wild species, 

 cannot be accounted for by supposing that they have been derived from 

 distinct parent-forms. There is, also, a great difference between the horns 

 of the two sexes in one Indian breed of goats. The bull zebu is said to 

 have a larger hump than the cow. In the Scotch deer-hound the two sexes 

 differ in size more than in any other variety of the dog, 27 and, judging from 

 analogy, more than in the aboriginal parent-species. The peculiar colour 

 called tortoise-shell is very rarely seen in a male cat ; the males of this variety 

 being of a rusty tint. A tendency to baldness in man before the advent 

 of old age is certainly inherited ; and in the European, or at least in the 



27 W. Scrope, ' Art of Deer Stalking,' p. 354. 



