It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future, and that sexual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it appears to be.
Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been found among all the great divisions of the human race.

It would be possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under this head.[14] Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we are dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so ignorant of the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to discover sexual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race.

Travellers have spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without defining the precise relationship involved nor inquiring how far any congenital impulse could be distinguished.
Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a widespread natural instinct impelling men toward homosexual relationships, and that this has been sometimes, though very exceptionally, seized upon and developed for advantageous social purposes.

On the whole, however, unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has been regarded as an antisocial offense, and punishable sometimes by the most serious penalties that could be invented.

This was, for instance, the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru, among the Persians, in China, and among the Hebrews and Mohammedans.
Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of homosexuality, with or without an implied disapproval.