300 Becords of Ilyhrkl Rabhits 



spring rc'sembling in colour some oiie parent or other ancestor, rathcr tlian a iiiixtiire 

 of many. As this is equally true of coniinou pet rabbits, thcse aiiiiuals sliould be 

 good material to furnish evidence for the Meudelian principles. 



The foUowing experiments on the colour inheritance of rabbits were originally 

 undertaken in order to get exact material for the study of Galton's Law of 

 Anccstral Heredity (9) ; and were begun in the spring of 1899. Up to the 

 present time I have bred some 350 young, most of whom have ancestry now kept 

 to the third or fourth generation, yet there has always been such a marked 

 deviation froni the law as announced by Galton that I have wished to withhold 

 the results until a larger number of figures might be at hand. Thinking, howcver, 

 that if Mendel's principles are to be of practical application to the breeder, they 

 should show their force in a group of at least 300 individuals, I deterniined to 

 See what hei}! might be derived by using this old aud forgotten work now so 

 fortunately rediscovered. 



My original pui-pose was to obtain b}" means of artificial selection a race of 

 pure blacks and then cross tliese with albinos. Although I have selected the 

 blacks with this end in view for several generations a pure black' race has not yet 

 beeu formed. This part of the work then is very siniilar to the efforts of a 

 breeder of fancy stock, trying to improve his strain. Most of the other experiments 

 are the crossing of nearly pure black with albinos, or the mating of albinos which 

 have black in the ancestry. I have always feit that it was very stränge that two 

 albino parents which are themselves the descendants of an ancestry almost entirely 

 black on all sides, should never bc able to throw a trace of black in any of their 

 progeny. Such a fact being absolute in every instance cannot be pa.ssed over by 

 calliug it " a prepotency," since if there were a prepotency of white over black, 

 the black ought, ncverthele.ss, once in a wlnle to show itself, which under these 

 circumstances it never does, according to both the reports of breeders and the 

 records of investigators. 



We may now turn to the analysis of the figures, taking the three main 

 groups according to coluur of parents : Ist, black x black ; 2nd, black x white ; 

 3rd, white x white. 



The colours met with are indicated as foUows : B = black ; W = albino ; 

 G = grey ; Y — yellow. A few spotted ones which could not be placed in any 

 one of these categories were occasionally met with ; these will be described in 

 detail. 



The number of each experinient (or litter) is given in Roman numerals. The 

 numbers in brackets, e.g. (1) (2) etc. are used to distinguish the individual 

 rabbits. 



The 150 offspring when both parents were black or nearly so, were 105 of 

 similar colour ; 28 albino ; 9 grey ; and 8 yellow. Intermodiate or .spotted forms 

 did not occur from these paii'ings. 



