i8 2 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Punnett. Even the slides were not new, and that remarkable 

 but very well-known pedigree of night-blindness, completed 

 years ago by Professor Nettleship, again did duty. Of course 

 the British Association must be to a degree popular. It wants 

 to advance the public interest in science ; but here again I 

 would insist on the fact that the public is far more generally 

 interested in new facts than in didactics or explanations of old 

 facts. The Association would be reduced to fatuity if all the 

 new sections take the view that their duty is not to commu- 

 nicate the year's progress, but to explain the rudiments. A 

 phonograph record taken last year would have served the 

 purpose of the Mendelian debate admirably. Happily one new 

 fact leaked out, as if against Professor Bateson's will. He seems 

 to have proved almost to the hilt that the peculiar "pacing" 

 action of the American horse responds as clearly as the colour 

 of the hackney to the Mendelian law. One very suggestive 

 contribution was made to this debate by Professor Wilson, who 

 gave some admirable illustrations of the way in which biological 

 laws may test historical views and suggest historical studies. 

 The application is quite new. His sketch of the supposed 

 migrations of varieties of cattle through England and Ireland 

 was too long even to summarise in this place; but the conclusion 

 is enough to exhibit the possibilities of his new historical 

 method. 



It was supposed, on a tradition largely oral, that the Short- 

 horn was created out of two distinct breeds, a red and a white. 

 This historical conjecture is biologically proved by Mendel's 

 law. Statistics from Shorthorn records indicate that roan 

 Shorthorns produce red and white and roan young according to 

 the Mendelian ratio : the roan Shorthorn, one may say, is an 

 exact parallel with the blue Andalusian. The history of 

 Dexters and Kerrys is similar; but their breeding produces 

 some eccentricities that might well be investigated. 



The Dexter is a cross between the black cattle of Kerry and 

 the red cattle of the South of England. In crossing the black 

 and red, black is dominant over red and the stout animal 

 dominant over the tall. Dexters as a rule are not bred with 

 Dexters. The safe way to get a Dexter is to breed from 

 a Kerry and a Dexter. But when bred together the Dexters 

 breed in addition to Kerrys and Dexters a large proportion 

 of animals that are really monstrosities, with an unnatural 



