A few details from the many cases collected by Mr. Sedgwick (14/27. On Sexual Limitation in Hereditary Diseases 'Brit. and For. Med.-Chirurg. Review' April 1861 page 477; July page 198; April 1863 page 445; and July page 159. Also in 1867 'On the influence of Age in Hereditary Disease.'), may be here given. Colour-blindness, from some unknown cause, shows itself much oftener in males than in females; in upwards of two hundred cases collected by Mr. Sedgwick, nine-tenths related to men; but it is eminently liable to be transmitted through women. In the case given by Dr. Earle, members of eight related families were affected during five generations: these families consisted of sixty-one individuals, namely, of thirty-two males, of whom nine-sixteenths were incapable of distinguishing colour, and of twenty-nine females, of whom only one-fifteenth were thus affected. Although colour-blindness thus generally clings to the male sex, nevertheless, in one instance in which it first appeared in a female, it was transmitted during five generations to thirteen individuals, all of whom were females. The haemorrhagic diathesis, often accompanied by rheumatism, has been known to affect the males alone during five generations, being transmitted, however, through the females. It is said that deficient phalanges in the fingers have been inherited by the females alone during ten generations. In another case, a man thus deficient in both hands and feet, transmitted the peculiarity to his two sons and one daughter; but in the third generation,--out of nineteen grandchildren, twelve sons had the family defect, whilst the seven daughters were free. In ordinary cases of sexual limitation, the sons or daughters inherit the peculiarity, whatever it may be, from their father or mother, and transmit it to their children of the same sex; but generally with the haemorrhagic diathesis, and often with colour-blindness, and in some other cases, the sons never inherit the peculiarity directly from their fathers, but the daughters alone transmit the latent tendency, so that the sons of the daughters alone exhibit it. Thus the father, grandson, and great-great-grandson will exhibit a peculiarity,-- the grandmother, daughter, and great-grand-daughter having transmitted it in a latent state. Hence we have, as Mr. Sedgwick remarks, a double kind of atavism or reversion; each grandson apparently receiving and developing the peculiarity from his grandfather, and each daughter apparently receiving the latent tendency from her grandmother.
From the various facts recorded by Dr. Prosper Lucas, Mr. Sedgwick, and others, there can be no doubt that peculiarities first appearing in either sex, though not in any way necessarily or invariably connected with that sex, strongly tend to be inherited by the offspring of the same sex, but are often transmitted in a latent state through the opposite sex.
Turning now to domesticated animals, we find that certain characters not proper to the parent species are often confined to, and inherited by, one sex alone; but we do not know the history of the first appearance of such characters. In the chapter on Sheep, we have seen that the males of certain races differ greatly from the females in the shape of their horns, these being absent in the ewes of some breeds; they differ also in the development of fat in the tail and in the outline of the forehead. These differences, judging from the character of the allied wild species, cannot be accounted for by supposing that they have been derived from distinct parent forms. There is, also, a great difference between the horns of the two sexes in one Indian breed of goats. The bull zebu is said to have a larger hump than the cow. In the Scotch deer-hound the two sexes differ in size more than in any other variety of the dog (14/28. W. Scrope 'Art of Deer Stalking' page 354.) and, judging from analogy, more than in the aboriginal parent-species. The peculiar colour called tortoise-shell is very rarely seen in a male cat; the males of this variety being of a rusty tint.