422 . THE ZOOLOGIST. 



channels which bring it to those parts of the body which are 

 most in use in courtship, or chietly subjected to nuptial energy. 

 Hence may result many nuptial weapons or ornaments. Under 

 such an argument we at once understand how it is that in some 

 animals the sexual characters are permanent, in others transitory. 

 Inasmuch as they follow the growth of the genital organs, where 

 this growth is periodical so are they periodical, and, where the 

 genital organs are influential throughout life, the characters are 

 permanent, waxing and waning, however, like the Stag's horns, 

 with their progress from youth through maturity to senescence. 

 What is inherited, then, may well be not the secondary sexual 

 characters themselves, but the influence of the genitalia, the 

 tendency to the disruption of spare material and its deposition 

 in particular regions, a process which certainly appears to become 

 fixed after numerous generations. 



Such is a view of sexual dimorphism and the seasonal assump- 

 tion of nuptial weapons or ornaments, which I venture to put 

 forward in all humility. Two advantages may be claimed for 

 it — (1) it is based on a physiological standpoint, and starts on 

 firmer and deeper ground than the older theories ; (2) it includes 

 in its scope not only persistent sexual dimorphism, but seasonal 

 exhibitions of sexuality. 



