XX. Account of the Free Martin.. GE Read February 25, 1779. ENERATION, when produced from a feed, has two causes which concur towards its perfection; the one which forms the feed, the other which gives it the principle of action (^). The cause which forms the feed is called the female, the other cause is called the male; but those two caufes in general make only a part of a whole animal, or are (a) It may be neceffary for fome of my readers to have explained to them what I mean by a feed. I do fuppofe, that the word feed was firft applied to grain, or that which is always called feed in the vegetable; which feed is the part of that clafs of vegetables in which the matter of the young vegetable exists, or is formed. The principle of arrangement fitting the parts for action in this class of feed being at first not known, a falfe analogy between the vegetable and animal was established, viz. the fecretion of the teftes (the only known principle in the animal) was called the feed: but from the knowledge of the diftinct fexes in the vegetable it is well known, that the feed is the female production in them, and that the principle of arrangement for action is from the male. The fame ope- ration and principles take place in many orders of animals, viz. the female produces a feed, in which is the matter fitted for the firft arrangement of the organs of the animal, and which receives the principle of arrangement fitting them for action from the male. rather rather parts fuperadded to an animal. Probably they were first considered in those animals where those parts were feparated, or in which the female parts were wholly found in one animal and the male in the other; therefore the terms female and male have been applied to the whole animal, dividing them into two distinct fexes, and the parts which formed either the one fex or the other called either the female or the male parts of generation; but upon a further knowledge of animals, and of those parts, they were found to be united in the same animal in many of the inferior tribes, who, from poffeffing both parts, have got the name of hermaphrodite. As both those parts are natural to most animals, and as the union of them in the fame animal is also natural to many, and the feparation of them in diftinct animals, is only a circumstance making no effential difference in the parts themselves; it becomes no great effort or uncommon play in nature to unite them in those animals in which they are commonly feparated. And accordingly we find many of those orders of animals, which have them feparate naturally, have them fometimes united. From this account hermaphrodites may be divided into two kinds; the natural, and the unnatural uncommon or monftrous. The natural belongs to the inferior and more fimple order of animals, of which there are a much greater number than of the more perfect; but as animals become more complicated, have more parts, and each part is more confined to its particular use, a separation of the two neceffary powers for generation have also taken place in them. The unnatural, I believe, now and then takes place in every tribe of animals having distinct sexes, but is more common in fome than in others (b). I fancy the human has the feweft, never having seen them in that species nor in dogs: cats we know lefs of; but in the horse, ass, sheep, and cattle, they are very frequent. Though this species of hermaphrodite be a mixture of both fexes, and fo poffeffes the parts peculiar to each in perfection, there is yet one part of each which it does not poffefs: I mean the part which is common to both. For as this common part is different in one fex from what it is in the other, and it is impoffible for one animal to have both kinds; that which they do have must of course partake of both fexes, and confequently render the hermaphrodite imperfect quoad hoc. (b) Quere, Is there ever in the tribe of animals, that are natural hermaphrodites, a feparation of the two parts? VOL. LXIX. This This one or common part is the clytoris in the female, and penis in the male; and the great difference in this part between the one fex and the other is fize and perforation for the femen. But those parts, which are peculiar to each fex, may be all perfectly joined in the fame animal, which would. rome up to the idea of the trueft hermaphrodite. The hermaphrodites of this kind, which I have feen,, have always appeared externally, and, at firft view, to be females and in thofe fpecies of animals where only the female is preserved for breeding, as in fheep, goats, pigs, &c. they are generally faved as females. In the horse they are very frequent: I have feen several, but never diffected any. The most perfect I have seen in this species were thofe in which the testicles had come down out of the abdomen into the place where the udder should have been (viz. more forward than the Scrotum) and appeared like an udder, not fo pendulous as what the scrotum is in the true male of fuch animals.. There were also two nipples, which horses have no perfect form of, being blended in them with the fheath or prepuce, of which there was none here. The external female parts were exactly fimilar to those of the perfect female; and, instead of a common |