The unfertilized, ripe egg possesses all the potentiality for full development. The process of fertilization by a spermatozoon introduces the nucleus of the male sex cell into the female egg, a process that increases the differences between parent and offspring and may determine the sex of the new individual and also stimulates the egg to begin development. These two functions are separate. Parthenogenetic development, without benefit of sperm, occurs naturally in various kinds of animals besides the waterflea (Daphnia), already described. Artificial, or experimental, parthenogenesis is readily brought about in many other species and by a variety of means. Mature, unfertilized eggs of starfish, sea urchins, various worms, and other marine invertebrate animals can be caused to develop by treatment with a weak organic acid. Unfertilized frog eggs can be readily caused to develop by gentle pricking of the egg surface with the tip of a fine glass needle that has been dipped in lymph. In nature the eggs of various creatures can develop with or without the aid of spermatozoa. The sex of parthenogenetically developed individuals, insofar as it depends on the chromosomal constitution of the developing egg, is consequently affected. Frog eggs developing parthenogenetically become males, since only one X chromosome is present in each cell. In nature, where varying conditions call for various responses, the system is usually more complicated, although based on the general relationship that individuals with the XX constitution will be female and those with a single X will be males. A queen honeybee, for instance, begins her reproductive life with a store of sperm received from a male during her nuptial flight. Throughout spring and summer almost all eggs become fertilized and develop into females (either as nonfertile female workers or as new fertile queens, depending on the nature of food received during growth). Toward the end of summer, when the sperm supply runs low, eggs cease to be fertilized and, when laid, develop into drones, ready to mate with a new queen should occasion arise. In other cases, even parthenogenetically developing eggs may become female individuals through a process of chromosome doubling, which takes place in the mature but unfertilized eggs. Thus certain wasps, waterfleas, and others are able to produce many exclusively female generations in succession.

Effects of environment

Sex chromosomes, however, do not determine sex directly but do so through their control of such cell activities as metabolism and hormone production. Their determinative influence, indirect though it is, may be complete. On the other hand, environmental conditions may play the dominating role. In the case of Bonellia, a unique kind of marine worm, all eggs develop into small larvae of a sexually indifferent kind. Those that settle freely on the sea floor grow into comparatively large females, each of which has a long, broad extension, the proboscis, at its front end. Those larvae that happen to settle on the proboscis of a female, however, fail to grow beyond a certain minute size and become dwarf males, permanently attached to the female body. The sex-determining factor appears to be the environmental carbon dioxide tension, which is relatively high at the surface of living tissue.

Hormones

Because in most developing animals the reproductive gland is essentially neutral to begin with, there is generally some possibility that agents external to the gland, particularly chemical agents—i.e., hormones—circulating in the blood system, may override the sex-determining influence of the sex chromosomes. In the chick, for example, the sex can be controlled experimentally by such means until about four hours after hatching. If a female chick is injected on hatching with the male sex hormone, testosterone, it will develop into a fully functional cock. Even when injected at later stages of growth, the male hormone causes extra early growth of the comb, crowing, and aggressive behaviour after being injected in either male or female chicks. Female sex hormones, such as estrogen, on the other hand, stimulate early growth of the oviduct in the female and feminize the plumage and suppress comb growth when injected in the male.

This susceptibility of the reproductive glands, and sexuality in general, to the influence of sex hormones is particularly acute in mammals, where the egg and embryo, unprotected by any shell, develop in the uterus exposed to various chemicals filtering through from the maternal blood stream. A developing embryo eventually produces its own sex hormones, but they are not manufactured in any quantity until the anatomical sex of the embryo is already well established. One of the curious things about sex hormones, however, is that the reproductive glands are not the only tissues that produce them. The placenta, through which all exchange between fetus and mother takes place, itself produces tremendous amounts of female sex hormone, together with some male hormone, which are excreted by the mother during pregnancy. This condition is true of humans, as well as of mice and rats. As a rule these hormones are produced too late to do any harm, but not always. The female embryo is fairly immune inasmuch as additional female hormone merely causes a child to be more feminine than usual at an early age. Male embryos, however, may be seriously affected if the female hormone catches them at an early stage. Boy babies may be born that are truly males but under the impact of the feminizing hormone appear superficially to be females and are often raised as such. As a rule, even when older, they have more or less sterile, undescended testes; an imperfect penis; well-developed breasts; an unbroken voice; and no beard. One in a thousand may be like this and on occasion may have won in women’s Olympic competitions. In other cases, those somewhat less severely affected, during adolescence when the hidden testes begin to secrete their own male hormones in abundance, the falsely female characteristics become suppressed, and the voice, beard, breasts, and sexual interest take on the pattern of the male. What were thought to be girls in their youth change into the men they were meant to be upon reaching maturity.