LITMIR.BIZ

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set of factors, such as abundant and rich nutrition, abundant light and moisture, favour constructive processes, i.e., make for an anabolic habit, and these conditions result in the production of females.25

      Among the lower orders of animal life, notably insects, we are assured that an excess of females denotes an excess of formative force, and that an excess of males indicates a deficiency on the part of the parents. In the case of bees, the queen, which is the highest development, is produced only under the best circumstances of nutrition, while the birth of the drone, which is the lowest result of propagation, is preceded by extremely low conditions.

      The working bee which, being an imperfect female, may not be impregnated, will, however, give birth to parthenogenetic offspring, such offspring always being male. In the case of Aphides, the sex depends on the conditions of nutrition. During the summer months while food is plentiful and nutritious, females are parthenogenetically produced, but with the return of autumn and the attendant scarcity of food, together with the low temperature, only males are brought forth. In seasons in which food is abundant, Cladocera and Aphides lose the power to copulate; they nevertheless multiply parthenogenetically at a marvellous rate of increase,

      giving birth to generation after generation of parthenogenetic females, so long as the environment remains favourable, but giving birth, as soon as the conditions of life become less favourable, to males and to females which require fertilization.26

      It is stated also that if caterpillars are shut up and starved before entering the chrysalis stage, the butterflies which make their appearance are males, while the highly nourished caterpillars are sure to come out females. In the case of moths unnutritious food produces only males.

      Experiments show that when tadpoles are left to themselves the average number of females is about fifty-seven in the hundred, but that under favourable conditions the percentage of females is greatly increased. The following is the result of one series of observations by Yung. In the first brood, by feeding one set with beef, the percentage of females was raised from fifty-four to seventy-eight; in the second, with fish, the percentage rose from sixty-one to eighty-one, which in the third set, when the nutritious flesh of frogs was supplied, only eight males were produced to ninety-two females.27

      It is stated that although scarcity of food is an important factor in determining the appearance of males, temperature also plays an important part in their production. Kurg having found a few males in midsummer in pools which were nearly dried up was induced to attempt their artificial production. So successful was he, that “he obtained the males of forty species, in all of which the males had previously been unknown.” He proved that

      any unfavourable change in the water causes the production of males, which appear as it dries up, as its chemical constitution changes, when it acquires an unfavourable temperature, or, in general, when there is a decrease in prosperity.

      From which observations and many others quoted from Düring, Professor Brooks concludes that “among animals and plants, as well as in mankind, a favourable environment causes an excess of female births, and an unfavourable environment an excess of male births.”28 According to Rolph, also, the percentage of females increases with the increase of favourable conditions of temperature and food.

      Among insects the males appear first, thus showing that less time is required to develop them from the larval state. Of this Mr. Darwin says: “Throughout the great class of insects the males almost always are the first to emerge from the pupal state, so that they generally abound for a time before any female can be seen.”29

      Recent observations show that among the human species nutrition plays a significant part in determining sex. Statistics prove that in towns and in well-to-do families there is a preponderance of girls, while in the country, and among the poor, more boys are born; also, that immediately following epidemics, wars, and famines, there is an excess of male births. On examination, it was found that in Saxony “the ratio of boy-births rose and fell with the price of food, and that the variation was most marked in the country.”30

      That the female represents a higher development than the male is proved throughout all the various departments of nature. Among plants, staminate flowers open before pistillate, and are much more abundant, and less differentiated from the leaves, showing that they are less developed, and that slighter effort, a less expenditure of force, is necessary to form the male than the female. A male flower represents an intermediate stage between a leaf and a perfect, or we might say, a female flower, and the germ which produces the male would, in a higher stage, produce the female.31 In reference to the subject of the relative positions of the female and male flowers in the Sedges, Mr. Meehan observes:

      In some cases the spike of the male flowers terminates the scape; in others the male flowers occupy the lower place; in others, again they have various places on the same spike. It will be generally noted that this is associated together with lines of nutrition—those evidently favoured by comparative abundance sustaining the female flowers.

      To this Mr. Meehan adds:

      And this is indeed a natural consequence, for, as vitality exists so much longer in the female than the male flowers, which generally die when the pollen has matured, it is essential that they should have every advantage in this respect.32

      The most perfect and vigorous specimens of coniferous trees are of the female kind. In its highest and most luxuriant stage the larch bears only female blossoms, but so soon as its vigour is lost male flowers appear, after which death soon ensues.

      In The Evolution of Sex, by Geddes and Thomson, is the following:

      In phraseology which will presently become more intelligible and concrete, the males live at a loss, are more katabolic—disruptive changes tending to preponderate in the sum of changes in their living matter or protoplasm. The females, on the other hand, live at a profit, are more anabolic—constructive processes predominating in their life, whence indeed the capacity of bearing offspring.33

      Among the lower orders of animals, there appears an excess of males, and among the higher forms of life, man included, the fact that the male is the result of the cruder, less developed germ, has been clearly shown, not alone by the facts brought forward by Mr. Darwin, but by those enunciated by all reliable writers on this subject. As a result of the excessive eagerness in males, and the consequent expenditure of vital force among the lower orders of life to find the female and secure her favours, they are generally smaller in size, with a higher body temperature and shorter life. Among the higher orders, the human species, for instance, although man is larger than woman, he is still shorter lived, has less endurance, is more predisposed to organic diseases, and is more given to reversion to former types, facts which show that his greater size is not the result of higher development. It is noted that the liability to assume characters proper to lower orders belongs in a marked degree to males of all the higher species—man included.

      Doubtless man’s greater size (a modification which has been acquired through Sexual Selection) has been of considerable value to him in the struggle for existence to which he has been subjected, but the indications are already strong that after a certain stage of progress has been reached, even this modification of structure will prove useless, if not an actual hindrance to him. On mechanical principles, every increase of size requires more than a corresponding increase of strength and endurance to balance the activities and carry on the vital processes, yet such have been the conditions of man’s development, that his excess of strength does not compensate for his greater size and weight, while his powers of endurance fall below those of women.

      Although the conditions of the past have required a vast expenditure of physical energy, the activities of the future will make no such demand. Nature’s forces directed by the human will and intellect are already lessening the necessity for an excessive outlay of bodily strength. It may be truly said that electricity and the innumerable mechanical devices now in use have well nigh supplanted the necessity for great physical exertion. Even war, should it be continued, which is not likely, will be conducted without it. Destructive weapons based upon high-power explosives require little physical effort for their manipulation. The pugilist represents the departing glory of male physical strength.

      We are informed by Mr.

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