12 H. H. NEWMAN. 



THE INHERITANCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF BAND ANOMALIES. 



After a study of over 150 of the most advanced sets of quad- 

 ruplets in my collection I am convinced that both band and 

 scute anomalies are strongly inherited. In every case in which 

 a mother exhibits a band or a scute anomaly, a related anomaly 

 is found in one or more of the offspring. If the character were 

 not inherited as a dominant, one would expect some exceptions 

 to this rule, but none have been found. When, therefore, we 

 find an equal number of offspring of normal mothers exhibiting 

 anomalies of the same sort we are justified in concluding that 

 the characters represent a heritage from the unknown fathers. 

 This assumption is farther justified by the finding that the char- 

 acters in question are neither sex-limited nor sex-linked. 



For our purposes, then, the data here published are adequate 

 in that a study of uniparental inheritance reveals fully the modes 

 of inheritance that obtain for band and scute anomalies. What- 

 ever genetic relations are found to hold between mothers and 

 offspring would doubtless hold for fathers and offspring. The 

 only unfortunate complication that is encountered is in connec- 

 tion with a small per cent, of cases in which both fathers and 

 mothers possess anomalies. A few sets of fetuses are obviously 

 of this dual anomalous parentage, and we can, by knowing the 

 maternal anomaly, make a well-founded conjecture as to the 

 probable nature of the anomaly in the unknown father. 



Whether or not I am justified in assuming that the study of 

 maternal inheritance reveals the essential facts concerning the 

 inheritance of the characters in question, can be settled only by 

 breeding and, as has been pointed out in extenso in an' earlier 

 paper (Newman, '13), breeding experiments with the armadillo 

 are at present totally impracticable. Consequently, we are 

 forced to rely upon a study of inheritance from one parent, 

 the mother. 



The nature of the anomalies is such that I have been unable to 

 devise any really convenient method for tabulating the facts that 

 must be known about them. It seems necessary to consider 

 each case of inheritance separately, and this may be done without 

 undue prolixity because the cases are not numerous. The 

 pictorial method appears to be well adapted for the data, but it 



