K. Pkarson 213 



What we are dealing witli licro is not a slit^ht, varialiuii in shadc, but tlic 

 presence or total ab.seneo ot' hlack |ii^iiicnta(iiin. Tliis jioint niii.st bc bornr in 

 niind. 



These cascs niigiit be enough, pcrhaps, for dogs, but I citc thc f'ollowing 

 instanci's out of niany for greyliounds *. 



I woidd tirst State that I liave sought in vain tbr any single colour cn- eom- 

 bination of colouis whieh bieuds true to itself. There is as far as 1 have been 

 able to ascertain absolutely nothing that can correspoud to Mendels "recessive" 

 character. At first it seenied to nie possible that black would be such. Bessie 

 Hay, a black bitch covered by Grinlaw a black dog, had a litter of entirely black 

 offspring in IS'JG, and lepeated this Performance with four instead of five whelps 

 in 1897. But the black bitch Fiiiest Fnry covered by the black dog Petrüniu.s in 

 a litter of eight had five black and threc red offspring. Black Middleton and black 

 Raven gave three black, onc blue, a red and a fawn offspring, while the black 

 bitch Mai/ßi/ crossed by the black Heniuts j^roduced four black and two fawn 

 offspring. In fact almost evcry possible greyhouud colour will he found in the 

 offspring of two black parents, — black, blue, eilher of these and white, fawn, led, 

 briudled ! If we next take such a cross as black and red we find red Recoil 

 covered by black Fortuna Faveiite giving six black offspring and we at once 

 consider whether black may be " dominant." But the red bitch Maid of all 

 Work threw in a litter to the black dog Black Marauder six brindled, one black, 

 one blue offspring and a white bitch with one eye and two ears black. Black 

 Nehida crossed by red Herschel gave five fawn offspring, one black and one blue 

 and white. Parents of the .sanie colours will be found to give litters of red, 

 and black and white offspring. A blue sire {Blue Peter VIII.) and a black dam 

 (Flotilla) will produco all the offspring red, while a black bitch covered by a 

 black and white sire will give pure black dogs, pure white dogs, or mixtures 

 of black, red or fawn with white. The black bitch Queen of the Golonies covered 

 by the red fawn dog Dodger gave beside five black and three red offspring a 

 white bitch. No single colour breeds true to itself, and while all these results are 

 explicable on the basis of ancestry, the Mendelian can only pass thcm over 

 by asserting that the greyhound is an incorrigible mongrel. 



We may next pass to eye-colour in man and I give the foUowing instancesf. 

 Father and mother both blue, two out of six children dark brown. Father and 

 mother both blue, one out of six children dark brown (colour of father's maternal 

 grandfather). Father and mother both light grey, four children light grcy, and 

 five black or very dark brown (colour of maternal grandmother). Now turn 

 to the opposite end of the scale : Father and mother black or very dark brown, 



* Pedigrees taken from data coUected by Mr Howard CoUins. 



t I gave the substauce of .^uch pedigrees to Prof. Weldoii, who made use of it in bis articie ou 

 Mendel'g Law in Biometrika (Vol. i. p. 242) in a passage criticised by Mr Bateson in bis Dcffiicc nf 

 Mendel, p. 192. I first tested Mendel's theory of dominance on eye-colour in man when I read 

 Mendel's paper in 1900 aud tben oommuuicated the result to Professor Weldon. 



