10if)] ANIMAL PRODUCTION. 275 



mammals, poultry, plants, and Insects. There are two chapters on llnki 



with special references to Drosophila, and or n sex determination, as well 



ns short discussions mi unit character constancy, multiple factors, gametic 

 purity, pure lines, tin- efficacy of selection, and similar topics The Royal Horti- 

 cnltural Society's translatloi] of Mendel's paper of L865 Is printed as an ap- 

 pendix. There is an extended bibliography. 



Inheritance of stature, 0. B. 1 >.\\ BHPOBS [Genetics, 2 {1917), No. 4- \n>- 313- 

 389, jiya. 19). — Material tor tbls Investigation consisted of two groups of family 

 data, one in which total beigbt alone had been determined, and another less 

 numerous group, secured personally by the author and his assistants, in which 

 measurements were made on the seated subject of the distance from the curfi 

 of the seal to the top of the head, from the seat to the upper border of the 

 breastbone, and from the ground to the head of the fibula at the side of the 

 knee. The full height being known, it was thus possible to divide the stature 

 of the members of this group into four segments which roughly coincide with 

 the head and neck combined, torso, thigh, antl lower leg. In discussing the 

 results the absolute measurements of an individual are not used, hut only 

 the deviation of each measurement from the mean of that individual's sex. 



Examination of these data convinced the author that shortness of stature 

 tends to be dominant to tallness, and that this condition results from the domi- 

 nance of smallness of body segment over elongation of segment. The segments 

 being more or less independent of each other, there is a considerable irregu- 

 larity in the results when total stature Is used. A lesser irregularity seen in 

 the inheritance of segment length indicates that the segments selected are not 

 the ultimate units of stature. There is also evidence of the inheritance of 

 proportional length of segments, and probably there exist factors which in- 

 fluence growth as a whole. 



The relation of yellow coat color and black-eyed white spotting of mice in 

 inheritance, C. C. Little (Genetics, 2 (1911), No. 5, pp. 433-1(44; abs. in Anat. 

 Rec, 11 (1917), No. 6, p. 501). — It is well known that yellow color in mice has 

 never been found in a homozygous condition. A black-eyed white spotted char- 

 acter, the inheritance of which has already been studied by the author (E. S. R., 

 34, p. 4G0), has the same peculiarity. As two doses of yellow or two doses of 

 black-eyed white seem to produce death, it is important to knew whether ani- 

 mals with a single dose of each are viable. The author reports that they are. 

 The lethal effects of yellow and of black-eyed white are, therefore, not addi- 

 tive. The two factors are found not to be linked. 



Inheritance of number of feathers of the fantail pigeon, T. H. Morgan 

 (Amer. Nat., 52 (1918), No. 613, pp. 5-27, firm. 16).— The feathers in question 

 are the tail feathers, which in fantails may be three or more times as numerous 

 as the usual 12 of other breeds, Three white fantails were crossed with ordi- 

 nary pigeons (color not mentioned) and the TVs allowed to breed together at 

 random, separate records not being kept of the offspring of particular pairs. 

 A few back crosses were, however, made. The frequency distributions, which 

 are given only as diagrams, present so many peculiarities that the author has 

 some difficulty in interpreting them on the customary basis of the multiple 

 factor hypothesis, The distribution of blue and white color among the tails 

 of different feather number suggest-; " that the principal factor for white Is 

 linked to one or more of the factors for increased number of feathers." There 

 -seems also to he a linkage between a gene for more than 12 tail feathers and 

 the gene f#r absence of oil gland. 



Some notes on split feathers are added. 



A note on the inheritance of color in one breed of pigeons — an attempt to 

 demonstrate a Mendelian type of transmission, J. S. W. Nuttall (Jour. 



