338 Action of the Genetic Material 



ferent doses of both M and F, with the results expected from the F/M 

 balance. As the working of the balance is here demonstrated more 

 easily, at least for the beginner, than in the di^Dloid intersexuality of 

 Lymantria, the Drosophila example has become very popular in 

 textbooks. This led, unfortunately, to the completely erroneous state- 

 ment that sex is determined by the balance between the number of 

 autosomes and X-chromosomes. In diploid intersexuality, these num- 

 bers are always the normal ones, and the balance is upset either by 

 relative potencies of F and M, whatever this is, or by the presence of 

 mutant loci affecting this balance, as in the different cases of diploid 

 intersexuality in Drosophila (see enumeration in Goldschmidt, 1948fl), 

 or even by environmental action (see later). In Bonibyx (Tazima, 

 1943) the F factor in the Y-chromosome is so strong that in its pres- 

 ence a female always is determined, whatever the number of X-chro- 

 mosomes and autosomes. (A comparable but more complicated situa- 

 tion in the plant Melandrium will be analyzed later.) Hence the 

 statement concerning the number of autosomes versus the number of 

 X-chromosomes has no general value. It applies in Drosophila to trip- 

 loid intersexes and the normal sexes (but not to diploid intersexes of 

 the same fly) only, because here the M action is localized in an auto- 

 some (see \2C d ee), thus making multiplication of autosomal num- 

 bers identical with M dosage. Altogether, triploid intersexuality is an- 

 other example of the action of genie material, whatever this means, 

 according to dosage. In Drosophila the turning-point idea (the so- 

 called time law of intersexuality) has been established for triploid 

 intersexes (Dobzhansky, 1930fo) and also for diploid ones (Gold- 

 schmidt, 1949a.); further, for triploid intersexes in Lepidoptera (see 

 discussion in Goldschmidt, 1949Z?). The general relation between 

 dosage of genie material and kinetics of its action is thus established 

 at least for the genetics of sex. Therefore it becomes important to study 

 general genie actions in different dosages, apart from the special situ- 

 ation in sex determination involving a balance. 



There is available a completely different set of data on dosage in 

 relation to sex determination, which is, if the observations and inter- 

 pretations are correct (which is doubted by many), independent of 

 the balance situation (see, however, below) because it takes place in 

 a haploid microorganism. This is true in the much-discussed work of 

 Moewus (see Hartmann, 1943; Sonneborn, 1951), which has not yet 

 been repeated in the same organism or another behaving similarly. The 

 details are rather complicated as far as the problem of sex determina- 

 tion is concerned, and will be discussed in connection with the genet- 



