26 ERNEST WARREN. 



tlie apparent blending as arising through the character being 

 a compound one which requires analysing into its component 

 parts before the Mendelian relationship can be recognised. 



In breeding experiments for testing the occurrence of the 

 Mendelian relationship it is most important, as was pointed 

 out by Prof. Weldon some years ago, that the categories into 

 which the offspring are grouped should be clearly defined. 

 In practice it is sometimes extremely difficult to sort out the 

 offspring into clearly defined groups, and unfortunately it 

 may become a matter of personal judgment as to whether an 

 individual should be placed in one or another category. 



Colour, independently of its distribution, may doubtless be 

 regarded sometimes as a simple character, and if the present 

 hybrid were fertile, and the Mendelian relationship occurred, 

 we should have, assuming that the yellow was dominant, 

 25 per cent, sulphur-yellow offspring (pure dominants), 25 

 per cent, red offspring (pure recessives), and the remaining 

 50 per cent, would be yellow impure dominants. But the 

 character of the hybrid of the first generation does not favour 

 the view that such a result would be obtained. Neither colour 

 is dominant, but the yellow and red have blended to form a 

 kind of orange in which there is more yellow than red. I have 

 not attempted to obtain a numerical expression for the amount 

 of the two colours in the orange of the hybrid, although 

 possibly such could be obtained. 



Again, the possession or absence of a sulphur-yellow 

 lanceolate recurved feathered crest as seen in C. galerita 

 might be conceivably a simple character; but the feathers 

 in the hybrid corresponding to the recurved crest-feathers of 

 the male are not recurved, they are relatively wider and 

 much shorter, and they are in fact more or less intermediate 

 in character between the feathers in the male and female. 



Thus in every character examined, with the possible 

 exception of coloured and non-coloured lores, there is a very 

 obvious blending of the male and female characteristics ; and 

 although the external appearance of any hybrid is not to be 

 regarded as an absolute guide to its inherent gametic 



