Influence of the primary reproductive organs on the secondary sexual characters

✍ Scribed by Kellogg, Vernon L.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1904
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 241 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-104X
• DOI: 10.1002/jez.1400010406

✦ Synopsis

This paper records the results of certain experiments on the silkworm moth, Bombyx rnori, testing (a) the possibility of the regeneration of such important internal organs as the reproductive glands, and (6) the influence on the secondary sexual characters of the moth which the extirpation of the reproductive organs on one or both sides in larvz of various ages might effect.

T h e first question is a general one in regeneration, touching particularly the relation of natural selection as a causative agent to regeneration : external organs liable to natural mutilation might be perhaps advantageously regenerative, but internal organs not liable to mutilation could not, if regenerative, have this capacity of theirs explicable as a result of selection. T h e second question concerns the immediate stimulus which leads to the development in any individual of the secondary sexual characters (ornamental tufts of hair, feathers or scales, defensive, offensive or attractive processes, markings, etc., the peculiar clasping organs, etc., composing the external genitalia). Certain biologists hold that the stimulus for these secondary sexual characters in any individual depends directly upon the presence of the primary reproductive organs (ovaries or testes). J. W. Tuttl discusses the latter question, quoting the entomologist Wood., as follows: " T h e functions, then, of the reproductive glands are twofold: on the one hand they supply germ matter that resides within them with the means of developing and '