indeed, does one natural process give place to another in the ascending scale, that there are not only species but groups of species, in which the males are either wholly unknown or are rarely found. It is a marvelous and Almighty provision that evolutionary processes should overlap one another in this manner, so that man might work out for himself the riddle of the universe.

This being true, it is obvious that the male element is not the seat of the vital spark, and it is admitted now on all sides, that its essential function is merely to act as the vehicle by which new varieties are added, and not the vitalisation of the germ cell, which, in the female, is always much larger than in the male, the difference in the human species being three thousand to one.

In the lowest forms of life reproduction was by budding or fission. It seemed at first as though nature intended to have only a one-sexed world, but

'Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes back when night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek

Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the Spring-time

Her crown of verdure weaves,

And all the trees on all the hills

Open their thousand leaves;"

her great plan unfolded, and life gradually evolved through various stages, till sex differentiation took place. With sex differentiation began also the separate tendencies of male and female. It is, therefore, to mankind's dumb progenitors, to the lower or animal world from whence we came, that we must look in order to discover the distinguishing characteristics, which have ever since marked off the female from the male, and which have remained unchanged through an unbroken line of succession, during countless cycles of time.

Before discussing mental tendencies, it will be well to note first, the antecedent conditions which most favour the birth of male or female, and it will be found that in the whole realm of organic life, the governing principle is one and the same, namely, nutrition. Reproduction is closely associated with nutrition, and is, in the last analysis, an outcome of it. It is for this reason, in the interests of species, that nature lavished the best on the female.

Beginning with the plant world, it will be seen that the position of the female flower, with respect to the male, is generally in view of lines of nutrition, those spikes which are favoured with comparative abundance sustaining the female flowers. The same law holds good throughout the insect and animal world. Favourable conditions such as light, heat,

moisture, and abundant and rich nutrition tending to the birth of females, while the reverse conditions result in the production of males. The queen bee is the consequence of high nutrition and the drone of low diet. With half-fed caterpillars, or those which are kept in the dark before entering the chrysalis state, the butterflies which emerge will be males. Any unfavourable chemical change in the water, or in its temperature, or if it begins to dry up, will result in the production of male tadpoles. This has been proved beyond a doubt by experimental feeding, when it was ascertained that in proportion as the food was richer, the percentage of females increased, till finally there were no males.

Furthermore the length of the period of gestation becomes a factor, as it is a well-known biological fact, that, exactly in proportion as the individual moth is finer, the time required for its metamorphosis is longer, and for this reason the male evolves more quickly than the female. It would seem as if nature used every avenue to impress the greater relative importance of the female in the organic scheme.

In the human family observation has shown that conditions are analogous. The proportion of female births is greater in towns than in the country, and in families in comfortable circumstances than among After seasons of national distress such

the poor.

as war, pestilence or famine, more boys are born. than girls, and it has been recorded that in Saxony the ratio of boy births rose and fell with the price of food. It is conceded by all biologists that the female being a higher form of development requires more favourable ante-natal conditions to attain to that development.

The question now arises as to whether post-natal results justify the law, but as Dame Nature is parsimonious, she demands an equivalent for value received and measures gifts with a view to returns. A cursory examination of the organic kingdoms will show that cause and effect exactly balance one another. The vegetable realm affords countless instances in proof of the greater endurance and usefulness of the female. Staminate or male flowers open before pistillate or female; they are much more. abundant, and are less differentiated from the leaves. Mr. Meehan says that, "by turning to the male flowers we see a much greater number of tracts or small leaves scattered through the panicle, and find the pedicals longer than in the female, and this shows a much slighter effort, a less expenditure of force to be required in forming male than female flowers. A male flower, as we see clearly here, is an intermediate stage between a perfect leaf and a perfect, or as we may say, a perfect flower."

The larch bears only female blossoms during its most luxuriant stage, but when its vigour is declining and its strength is almost spent the male blossoms appear. The strongest and most perfect forms of coniferous trees are female. The more enduring vitality of the female is well exhibited in the hemp plant. It is not till after the appearance of the pollen that sex in hemp can be distinguished, and soon after it is shed the male begins to wither and dies. It has performed its sole function in life-to fertilise the female-and passes while the latter continues to grow taller and stronger, to bear fruit, ripen and reach maturity, and it is from the female plant that hemp fibre is obtained. To perfectly satisfy himself that this was true, Mr. Ward watched the growth of hemp, and so verified what has so often been repeated. This, however, is the general order in the plant world. It is the female that endures and is of service, and it is essential that she should have every advantage.

We have seen that in the insect kingdom the insignificant male has only one purpose in life and that "among millions of humble creatures the male is simply and solely a fertiliser," and we have also seen that he occasionally fails to do that. Geddes and Thomson, in their "Evolution of Sex," say that among the common rotifera (worms) the males are