PRODUCTION OF THE SEXES AMONG SHEEP. 
169 
gained some new hints; but, however this may be, the 
reader will see in the following notes only an exposition of 
facts, designed simply to draw attention once more to this 
curious question. And as the establishment of any natural 
law whatever, has at all times its utility even in practice, it is 
perhaps desirable still to find it of importance in the economic 
management of animals in certain positions. 
The general law which Giron de Bazareingues has recog¬ 
nised on the subject of the procreation of the sexes is as 
follows: The sex of the product would depend on the greater 
or less relative vigour of the individuals coupled. In many 
experiments purposely made, he has obtained from the ewes 
more males than females, by coupling very strong rams with 
ewes either too young or too aged, or badly fed ; and more 
females than males, bv an inverse action in the choice of the 
ewes and rams he put together. 
This law has developed itself regularly enough at the 
sheepfold of Blanc, in all cases in which circumstances of 
different vigour between the rams and ewes have been 
observed in coupling them. Witness two striking examples 
of it. 
In 1853, the births, the issue of young ewes by a Dishley- 
Mauchamp marino ram, extremely vigorous and highly fed, 
produced 25 males and 9 females only, or 71*73 per cent, of 
males, and 28*27 per cent, of females. 
At a latter period, the same ram, still in full vigour, having 
been put to some ewes that had done nursing their lambs— 
a period at which the ewe is found very weak—there resulted, 
in 1853, 8 male births against 4 female; and in 1854, 
under similar circumstances, 17 male against 9 female births. 
The two occasions united yielded 65*73 per cent, of males, 
and 34 22 per cent, of females. 
But the following fact has nothing in common with those 
related by Giron de Bazareingues, and which has been 
repeated, with small variation, every year, from 1853—the 
period at which the observations I have noted down began. 
This fact consists : 
1st. In that, at the commencement of the rutting season, 
when the ram was in his full vigour, he procreated more males 
than females. 
2d. When, some days after, the ewes coming in heat and 
in great numbers at once, the ram was weakened by a more 
frequent renewal of the exertion, the procreation of females 
took the lead. 
3d. The period of excessive exertion having passed, 
