96 BREEDING 



character, we perceive that dominance attaches not 

 to the individual but to the character. Some 

 individuals in certain animals, such as horses, are 

 said to possess the power of impressing their charac- 

 teristics on their offspring whenever they are mated, 

 which, in the case of stallions, is pretty often. What- 

 ever be the nature of this power, which is called 

 prepotency, it is clear that it has nothing to do with 

 dominance. Prepotency is an attribute of individuals, 

 and capricious in its appearance. Dominance is an 

 invariable attribute of particular characteristics. In 

 the case before us there is no question of a certain 

 individual impressing its characters on its offspring. 

 The hybrid takes one of its characters, yellow, wholly 

 from one parent, and another, round, from the other. 



We are thus brought in view of one of the con- 

 clusions to which experimental breeding has led, 

 namely, the conception that living things are made 

 up of a number of characters which arise separately 

 and are transmitted separately. Whatever may be 

 the value of this suggestion as a help to the under- 

 standing of evolution, there is no doubt as to its 

 value as a guide in the practice of breeding. 



The second hybrid generation produced by the 

 self-pollination of the yellow round hybrids referred 

 to above must now be considered. Briefly, this 

 generation consists of individuals presenting all the 

 four possible combinations of yellow, round, green 

 and wrinkled ; namely (9) yellow round, (3) yellow 

 wrinkled, (3) green round, and (1) green wrinkled, in 

 the proportions indicated by the figures in brackets 



