sure, he replaced the male sex glands with female, and found that the
former male developed female plumage.

This obviously signifies that in birds the female is an inhibited
male.[4, p.49.] Either sex when castrated has male feathers--the male has
them either with or without testes, unless they are _inhibited_ by the
presence of (transplanted) ovaries. It will be remembered that the
sociological theory of sex held by Ward, Mrs. Hartley and a host of
others was founded on the supposition that evolution or development of a
species is chiefly due to selection by the females of the better males,
a conclusion based almost entirely on bird evidence. Ward[17] states
that "the change or progress, as it may be called, has been wholly in
the male, the female remaining unchanged"; also that "the male side of
nature shot up and blossomed out in an unnatural, fantastic way...."
Speaking of the highly-coloured males, especially among birds, the same
writer states that "the _normal colour_ (italics ours) is that of the
young and the female, and the colour of the male is the result of his
excessive variability." Goodale's results completely refute this idea,
and should bury for ever the well-known sociological notion of "male
afflorescence."

The general doctrine of a stable, "race-type" female and a highly
variable male has been widely circulated. In tracing it back through
voluminous literature, it appears to have been founded on an article
published by W.I. Brooks in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for June,
1879, fourteen years before Weissmann's enunciation of the theory of
continuity of the germ-plasm. Like Wallace, Brooks continued to study
and experiment till the last, and finally withdrew from his earlier
position on sexual selection. However, this has not prevented others
from continuing to quote his discarded views--innocently, of course.