Usually the two birds reared from the two eggs laid in the same nest are a male and a feminine; but Mr. Harrison Weir, who has been so large a breeder, says that he has typically bred two cocks from the identical nest, and seldom two hens; moreover, the hen is generally the weaker of the two, and extra liable to perish. With respect to Cheviot and black-faced sheep bred in Scotland, I have obtained returns from six breeders, two of them on a large scale, mainly for the years 1867-1869, however a number of the returns extend back to 1862. The entire quantity recorded amounts to 50,685, consisting of 25,071 males and 25,614 females or in the proportion of 97.9 males to a hundred females. Mr. Weir on enquiring from the dealers, who obtain at certain seasons large numbers of ruffs (Machetes pugnax), was advised that the males are much the extra quite a few. What wonder that, in view of all these circumstances, essentially the most in depth observer of marriage-mattress phenomena ought to write: “As a matter of reality, nine young husbands in ten practically rape their brides at their first sexual assembly.” Could something be extra horrible, or criminally wicked?
Ornithoptera crœsus, within the Malay Archipelago, are extra widespread and extra easily caught than the males; but this is a rare butterfly. The males of the blackbird, he likewise maintained, were by far the extra numerous, whether or not caught by traps or by netting at night. With Spiders, Mr. Blackwall, who has carefully attended to this class during many years, writes to me that the males from their extra erratic habits are extra commonly seen, and due to this fact appear more quite a few. But in 1857 the male births throughout England have been as 105.2, and in 1865 as 104.0 to 100. Seeking to separate districts, in Buckinghamshire (the place about 5000 youngsters are annually born) the mean proportion of male to female births, during the entire period of the above ten years, was as 102.8 to 100; while in N. Wales (where the typical annual births are 12,873) it was as excessive as 106.2 to 100. Taking a nonetheless smaller district, viz., Rutlandshire (where the annual births common solely 739), in 1864 the male births had been as 114.6, and in 1862 as solely 97.0 to 100; however even on this small district the common of the 7385 births during the entire ten years, was as 104.5 to 100: that is in the same ratio as all through England.
Dogs.-During a interval of twelve years, from 1857 to 1868, the births of a large number of greyhounds, all through England, had been sent to the ‘Field’ newspaper; and I’m once more indebted to Mr. Tegetmeier for fastidiously tabulating the outcomes. Large numbers of pheasants are reared by Mr. Baker of Leadenhall from eggs laid by wild birds, and he informs Mr. Jenner Weir that four or five males to 1 female are typically produced. On a median of the costs of the 113 species, the worth of the male to that of the female is as one hundred to 149; and this apparently indicates that inversely the males exceed the females in the same proportion. This identical naturalist, however, informs me, that in the 2 yearly broods of the Ailanthus silk-moth (Bombyx cynthia), the males vastly preponderate in the first, while in the second the two sexes are practically equal, or the females moderately in excess. Thus his brother Fritz Müller has noticed in Brazil that the 2 sexes of the identical species of bee sometimes frequent completely different kinds of flowers. Dr. Wallace further remarks that female caterpillars, from being bigger than the males, require more time for his or her growth, and consume extra food and moisture; and thus they can be uncovered during an extended time to hazard from ichneumons, birds, &c., and in occasions of scarcity would perish in greater numbers.