BIOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL — DAVENPORT. 



91 



STUDIEvS ON INHERITANCE IN DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



This has been my major investigation. The following species are 

 being bred at the station : 



*In cooperation with Dr. Walter B. James. 



t Hybrids. 



The results with poultry and those with canaries will be made the 

 subject of special papers upon which I am now at work. A progress 

 report will here be made upon the mammals bred. 



Goats. — Two Irish goats were purchased in September, 1905. The 

 male possesses a pair of well-developed accessory auricles and the 

 female has a very small accessory auricle (wattle) on the right side 

 of the neck ; on the other side there is no extra auricle, but a 

 change in color of the hair marks the site where it has failed to de- 

 velop. The interest attaching to the accessory auricles depends on 

 the facts that they are typical abnormalties and subserve no func- 

 tion. They have been repeatedly observed in man and are some- 

 times associated with cervical fistulae. They are regarded as serially 

 homologous with the normal auricles. Among domesticated animals 

 they are found in pigs, sheep, and goats. The sheep of the Wilster 

 marshes are said to have the auricles associated with a neck bare of 

 wool, and in the Merino breed, as a whole, this abnormality is espe- 

 cially common. A case of inheritance of these pendants is cited by 

 Bateson (Variation, 1894, p. 1S0). Gouboux (Rec. de Med. Yeter. , 

 ser. 3, ix, p. 335) gives a case of two she-goats on a farm, one having 

 cervical appendages, the other having none. Each gave birth to a 

 pair of kids at the same time. Each pair consisted of a male and 

 a female, and in the one the male only had the appendages, in the 

 other the female only. The characteristics of the sire of these kids 

 were not known. 



Our female goat produced January 12, 1905, at the station, of 

 unknown paternity, two kids — one male and one female. The female 



