IX.—On the Relation of Fertility in Fowls to the Amount of Testicular Material and Density of Sperm Suspension

Abstract

Summary1. Fertility tests of eight partially castrated cocks and three controls show that within quite wide limits of fertility and of testis size the fertility of the male fowl is not in any way dependent upon size of the testis.2. The average density of sperm suspension was found to be approximately four million spermatozoa per cubic millimetre for the thirty-six samples examined from ten males.3. The variations in the average density of sperm suspension from different birds ranged from 825,000 to over 7,000,000 cells per cu. mm., but within this range the density of sperm suspension bore no relation to fertility.4. The number of sperm per cubic millimetre of semen appears to be entirely independent of the size of the testes within the ranges covered by this experiment.5. Compensatory hypertrophy to a degree approximating to the normal weight of both testes was observed in the retained right testes of cocks castrated unilaterally on the left side at one week of age.6. Exceptions to the rule of compensatory hypertrophy included birds with subcutaneous testis grafts and two in which one whole testis and part of the other had been removed.7. It is suggested that fertility in the male fowl is dependent upon the physiological efficiency of the spermatozoa rather than upon their quantitative production.