44 EVOLUTION IN COLOR-PATTERN OF THE LADY-BEETLES. 



The convergent dashes upon the pronotum were shown by Kellogg and 

 Bell (1904) to vary in size down to absence, and my observations confirm 

 this. No high degree of segregation is expected, then, in inheritance, and 

 none is found. Where the parents have intermediate dashes, the progeny 

 also have, although some may be just large enough not to be classed as 

 small in the table. The inheritance, then, is blending, but with so high 

 a variability that both absence and a considerable size may occur in one 

 fraternity. 



The condition of pronotal dashes communicating with the light margin 

 is inherited in an average of 27 per cent, when the one only known parent 

 has the characteristic. Where the other parent does not have it, as with 

 149?, none of the offspring have such a communication. Where both 

 parents have the communication, as in 435, then 6.5 in 11 possessed it. 

 There is, therefore, neither dominance nor trimorphic heredity, but sub- 

 ponderance. 



The data upon the incomplete margin cephalad is only adequate to 

 show that this character is inheritable and shows some segregation. The 

 incomplete margin laterad is classified upon an unsatisfactory basis, since 

 so many individuals have the margin almost incomplete. We have further- 

 more to deal with some modification. Yet it is clear that the character- 

 istic is inherited in part and it seems toigive us continuous variation. It is 

 quite possible that intermediate degrees are discriminated against in devel- 

 opment and that either a large lateral projection or a very slight one is 

 favored, as the facts of variation and distribution would cause us to suspect. 



If this species as here constituted is ever to be dismembered, it is most 

 probable (aside from the removal of variety moesta) that variety quinque- 

 signata and variety caseyi will be removed as H. quinquesignata. There 

 is some ground for this step, although, considering everything, I have not 

 chosen to make it. My experiments show a partial intersterility between 

 specimens of variety caseyi of full pigmentation and eastern specimens of 

 H.convcryens. But there was interfertility between specimens with the same 

 confluence in a lesser degree and having spot 1 small (the variety dejecta] 

 and eastern specimens of H. convergens. I have only hesitated from the 

 division because I do not know whether variety caseyi and variety defecta 

 may not be interfertile. The presence of intergrades causes me to suspect 

 that this is not only so, but that they habitually interbreed. At any rate, 

 this seems to be a point at which this species may in the future divide to 

 give us two species, even though it may not yet have done so. 



