[1] Bird, rather like quail.
[2] Translator's note. O sinistre continent.
[3] Castration of females seems, at least, among humans, to bring them nearer the male type. Effects of castration vary, necessarily, according to the age of the subject.
[CHAPTER VI]
SEXUAL DIMORPHISM
III. Vertebrates (continued).—Man and woman.—Characteristics and limits of human dimorphism.—Effects of civilization.—Psychologic dimorphism.—The insect world and the human.—Modern dimorphism, basis of the pair.—Solidarity of the human pair.—Dimorphism and polygamy.—The pair favours the female.—Sexual æsthetics.—Causes of the superiority of feminine beauty.
III. Vertebrates (continued)—Man and woman.— Among primates sexual dimorphism is but little accentuated, especially when the male and female live the same life in the open air and share the same labours. The male gorilla, very strong and very pig-headed, flees from no enemy; the female on the contrary is almost timid: when surprised in company with the male, she cries out, gives the alarm and escapes. But attacked when alone with her offspring, she resists. One can easily distinguish the male and female orang-outang, the male is larger with longer more bristling hair, he alone has a Horace Greeley beard; in the female the patches of bald skin are much less callous. But the great difference between the sexes in gorilla and orang-outang is in the males having vocal sacks descending over the chest to the arm-pits.
Thanks to these air-reservoirs, these bag-pipe bags, inflatable at will, the male can howl for a very long time and with great violence; the females' sacks are very small. Other monkeys, notably howling apes, are provided with these air-chambers, as are also certain other mammifers well known for the extravagance of their cries: polecats and pigs. Birds and batrachians have analogous organs.