No. 1, November, 1921] GENETICS 27 



thoro\ighbreil horses an inbred animal has never won a race. The latest scientific contribu- 

 tion on inbreeding suggests that it is only a majority of an inbred strain that suffers the evil 

 effects while the remainder may acquire all the benefits of inbreeding without any of the evil 

 effects. The family craze: Pedigrees should be valued on the breeding ability of the imme- 

 diate ancestors and the degree of consanguinity between them. The weight given to animals 

 in distant generations is excessive. The family, craze, which results in animals of fashionable 

 families being retained for breeding purposes regardless of worth, and which permits good 

 animals to go because they lack aristocratic names, is doing a great deal of harm. Thomas 

 Bates is blamed for initiating the family craze and it is pointed out that "our own Amos 

 Cruikshank who cared nothing for families or for high-sounding names, would be a better 

 model to imitate." — R. R. Graves. 



139. Webber, Herbert J. The place of plant breeding in commercial seed companies' 

 Florists' Exchange 51 : 147G-1477. 1921. — The author cites instances of successful plant- 

 breeding work, both governmental and private, and discusses the alternative merits of plant 

 breeding and of pedigreed-seed production by government agencies on the one hand and by 

 private industries on the other. It is argued that government agencies should not engage in 

 large-scale breeding for practical seed production if private companies can do the work equally 

 well, and that the activities of government agencies act as a deterrent to private industry 

 along these lines. — /. Marion Shull. 



140. Wellington, R. Report on vegetable investigations being carried on by experiment 

 stations and similar institutions. Proc. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci. 17: 267-275. 1920 [1921]. — 

 The main projects now under way are briefly described. These include studies in selection, 

 breeding, and pollination with the vegetable crops. — H. K. Hayes. 



141. White, Orland E. The pollination of flowers. Brooklyn Bot. Gard. Leaflets 

 Series 9^'^ 15 p. 1921. — A general discussion of flower pollination is presented. The 

 interrelationships between plants and insects are described in an interesting manner. — 

 //. K. Hayes. 



142. Woodward, B. B. [Rev. of: Pelseneer, Paul. Les variations et leur heredity 

 chez les moUusques. [Variations and their inheritance among the mollusks.] Mem. Acad. 

 Roy. Belgique CI. Sci. Collection in 8°. II, 5: 1-826. 286 fig. 1920.] Nature 107: 7. 1921. 



143. Wright, Sew all. Systems of mating. I. The biometric relations between parent 

 and offspring. Genetics 6: 111-123. 2 fig. 1921. — The method of path coefficients previously 

 determined by the author (see Bot. Absts. 9; Entry 280) is brought to bear on the various 

 relationships which may exist between parent and offspring. After discussing the various 

 consequences of the Mendelian mechanism expected in equilibrium and for the various 

 systems of mating, the author points out how the effects of the residual heredity or the 

 separate effects of heredity and environment may be mea,sured*mathematically. Methods 

 of allowing for the effect of dominance are discussed as well as the expected relations 

 between zygotes and gametes. His fundamental formula is h^ + d^ + e"^ = 1, in which 

 h represents the constitution of the fertilized egg, d the tangible environmental factors, 

 and e the intangible environmental factors. Different formulae are then offered to express 

 the other relationships previously enumerated, and all are assembled in table 2 at the 

 close of the paper, presenting the cases for consanguine mating, equilibrium, and ran- 

 dom mating. The general formula in consanguine mating for the correlation between 

 2 parents is r,,;, = mh' in which in represents the correlation between egg and sperm 

 and h' the zygotic constitiition of the parents. Similarly, the correlation between parent 

 and offspring is rpo = abhh' (1 + "0; in which a is the path coefficient from gamete to 

 zygote, m and h' have the meaning previously given, h is the zygotic constitution of the 

 oft"spring, and b is the correlation between the hereditary constitution of the gamete from 

 the sire producing the individual in question and the hereditary constitution of the paternal 

 zygote. The correlation between 2 offspring is r,w = 2a'b^h^ (I + m) + e^. — Edward N. 

 Wenhvorth. 



