108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



character recessive. No union of two albino mice, regardless of their 

 parentage, has ever given any but albino young in the present writer's 

 experience. This result is corroborated by the observations of a number 

 of other investigators. Thus, von Guaita ('98; ; 00), Cuenot ( : 02) 

 and Bateson ( : 03'') record crosses of two albino mice in which only 

 albino young were produced. Crampe ('85) obtained a similar result in 

 his experiments with albino rats. In the case of other mammals, also, a 

 like result has been obtained. Both Cumberland ( : 01), and Castle and 

 Allen ( : 03) state that albino guinea pigs breed true to that character, 

 and "Woods ( : 03) has made a similar record in the case of albino rabbits 

 of colored parentage. 



In man it has been shown that complete albinism is a recessive charac- 

 ter (see Farabee, : 03, and Castle, : 03* ; also Bateson, : 03''), and it is 

 to be expected that two human albinos would have albino children only. 

 The two authors last mentioned, however, have shown that in the negro 

 a marriage of pigmented and albino persons has resulted in the produc- 

 tion of pigmented children only, and in the case of a marriage of two 

 other normally colored persons (one being a known heterozygote) albino 

 as well as pigmented children were born. Mr. A. H. Clark, in a letter 

 to the writer, makes the interesting observation that in a case which 

 came to his notice while in the West Indies, an albino negress gave birth 

 to only normally pigmented children, her husband being a normal negro. 



A further illustration of the recessive nature of the albino character is 

 recorded by Mile. Barthelet (:00). This observer made three series of 

 experiments with gray house mice and albinos, for the purpose of testing 

 the supposed phenomenon of telegony. In the first series, four virgin 

 albinos were covered by as many gray house mice. In each case only 

 gray young resulted. Each female was then bred to an albino, and only 

 albinos resulted. In the second series of experiments, a white female 

 that had never borne young, was bred to a gray house mouse for three 

 successive times, and produced only gray young. Being then covered 

 by an albino male, she gave birth to albinos only. In the third series of 

 experiments, a similar albino female was bred alternately to an albino 

 and to a gray male, with the result that by the albino male only albino 

 young were produced, and by the gray male only gray young. Some 

 such result as this in other cases may have been the foundation for J. 

 von Fischer's ('69) erroneous statement that in crosses between a normal 

 and an albino form the young are like the male parent. Mile, liarthe- 

 let's results might have been precisely predicted by one acquainted with 

 the Mendelian principles of heredity. The work was apparently per- 



