Gerald Edwin Hamilton Barrett-Hamilton

“ I suggested, from a consideration of the spawning habits of the various species of Oncorhynchus, that secondary sexual characters, as well as the seasonal assumption of nuptial ornaments and weapons, might have had their origin in pathological conditions: that the whole metabolism of the animal is upset in the effort to produce the sexual products, with a result that pigment and matter are set loose in the body, and find their way to new regions, often with a fatal—always with a serious—influence on the animal, but resulting in the production of nuptial adornments and weapons. ”

“ What I conceive to happen is somewhat as follows:—In animals which exhibit neither sexual dimorphism nor seasonal armature or ornamentation, the influence of the generative organs is exerted equally upon the sexes, as well as, probably, throughout life. In animals exhibiting the phenomenon either of sexual dimorphism or seasonal armature or ornamentation, the generative organs, when the individual is young, have usually little or no influence on the body, which follows in its growth the simplest possible laws. ”

“ What is inherited, then, may well be not the secondary sexual characters themselves, but the influence of the genitalia, the tendency to the disruption of spare material and its deposition in particular regions, a process which certainly appears to become fixed after numerous generations. ”