I 



Notes on Colour Inheritance in Maize. 



BY 



R. H. LOCK, M.A. Sc.D. 



N an interesting and extensive memoir entitled Inheritance 

 in Maize,* Messrs. East and Hayes have pubhshed data 

 which go far towards elucidating the complex heredity of the 

 colours of the aleurone layer. This problem was left unsolved 

 in my paper on Experiments with Maize, f pubhshed in these 

 Annals in 1906, but relating to work concluded early in 1904. 

 The object of the present note is to give a brief summary of 

 the conclusions arrived at by East and Hayes so far as they 

 affect the problems discussed in my own papers — a statement 

 which may be useful owing to the absence of any suromary 

 from the paper under review. At the same time I desire to 

 express a general agreement with those conclusions and to 

 adduce a few further figures in confirmation of the explanations 

 given. 



Messrs. East and Hayes have shown conclusively that the 

 method generally emploj^ed by me, of pollination in bulk 

 from a supposed pure white strain, was defective, owing to 

 the fact that individuals of such a strain may carry different 

 invisible factors which react differently in the production of 

 colour. In extenuation of my practise it may be pointed out 

 that the first published record of such differences was con- 

 tained in Cuenot's description of his experiments with mice. 

 This paper { appeared in 1904, and only came into my hands 

 after my owti experiments were completed. At that time 

 such advanced students of Mendelian phenomena as Messrs. 

 Bateson and Punnett were still employing the vague formula 

 of " compound allelomorphism. "§ The idea of separatel}' 

 segregating factors had not yet been introduced to describe 



* Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, No. 167. 



t Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Vol. III., 

 Part II., November, 1906. 



J L'Heredite de la Pigmentation chez les Souris. Sme.'note. Archives 

 de Zool. Exp. Notes et Pveviie. XLV., 1904. 



§ W. Bateson : Address to the Zoological Section of the British 

 Association, 1904, p. 9. 

 Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Vol. V., Part IV., August, 1912. 



