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Female Bagg mice injected with 1 mg testosterone propionate when 5 days old (androgenized mice) were sterile when they were mated at the age of 3 months. It was shown that the sterility was not due to a failure to ovulate but rather to aggressive behaviour towards the male which apparently prevented sexual consummation. The results of this study are compared with those of an earlier study (Peters & Sørensen, 1970) in which androgenized Bagg mice were mated immediately after weaning at the age of 1 month. These animals showed reduced fertility, but were not sterile. Fighting in this group of mice was only moderate and copulation and impregnation took place throughout maturity.

The possible reasons for the different fertility and behaviour towards the male in androgenized mice that are mated at different ages are discussed. Androgenized females housed with males from the time of weaning, however, behave in a manner similar to that of mice which have been reared together: they fight rarely and then only moderately. It is thought that in androgenized mice a stimulus (probably a pheromone) activates their brain, previously programmed for aggression, when their first contact with a male is in adulthood: they do not become sensitive to the stimulus if they remain in constant contact with a male from the time they are weaned.

Consequently, androgenized mice that are first mated when they are adult, fight their male mates, preventing insemination: those reared with a male accept and permit sexual contact when they are adult.