RECENT DISCOVERIES IN HEREDITY. 



J 95 



produces offspring with ears of intermediate size, which sometimes stand 

 erect and sometimes lop. (See Fig. 3.) The ear-characters which 

 were so distinct in the parents have in this case lost their identity in 

 the offspring, and apparently can not be recovered again in their orig- 

 inal condition, for the offspring transmit to their young the blended 

 character, rather than the extreme conditions found in their respective 

 parents. 



It has been thought until quite recently that hereditary processes in 

 general were of this sort and that any result other than a blend was 

 exceptional. But recent investigations do not bear out this idea. 



- Fig. 3. A Black-coated, Hai.f-lop Rabbit, son of the two rabbits shown in 



Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. 



Alternative inheritance is illustrated in a cross between the so-called 

 Belgian hare and an albino rabbit. The Belgian hare is simply a 

 gray-coated variety of the European rabbit, while albino rabbits are 

 pink-eyed animals of the same species and have white hair ; the Belgian 

 is pigmented like the wild European rabbit, the albino is essentially 

 unpigmented. A cross between the two produces offspring all of which 

 have the pigmented or Belgian coat, none being albinos. Compare 

 Fig. 3 ; in this case the parents were an albino and a brown pigmented 

 animal, respectively. The young, nine in number, were all black pig- 

 mented, like the one shown in Fig. 3. 



The effect of crossing a pigmented rabbit with an albino is similar 

 to that produced when two pieces of glass, one transparent, the other 

 opaque, are held up together. We see only the opaque one. Xeverthe- 

 less, the two conditions have not blended ; each retains its original dis- 



