Note 277 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
This is the conclusion of one of the highest authorities in comparative anatomy, namely, Prof. Gegenbaur: ‘Grundzüge der vergleich. Anat.’ 1870, s. 876. The result has been arrived at chiefly from the study of the Amphibia; but it appears from the researches of Waldeyer (as quoted in Humphry’s ‘Journal of Anat. and Phys.’ 1869, p. 161), that the sexual organs of even “the higher vertebrata are, in their early condition, hermaphrodite.” Similar views have long been held by some authors, though until recently not well based.