INHERITANCE OF VARIATES IN THE ARMADILLO 159 



Substituting, we get: 



235.37 +169.95 - 180.29 ^ ,._ ^ „ „_„_ 



'- = ^Ti5:34-^o3:o3r~ ^ ^''^ '-^^^^ 



An analysis of these results leads to the following conclusions: 



1. The degree of correlation between mothers and offspring is, 

 on the average, very low as compared with that which obtains 

 for sets of offspring. Taking into account the probable errors, 

 that of both males and females approximates 0.5, which may be 

 taken to mean that, lumping all sets together, half of the inherit- 

 ance of the characters in question comes from the mothers and 

 presumably the other half from the fathers. This does not neces- 

 sarily mean that in each set there is an even blend between the 

 scute counts of the two parents, for an examination of individual 

 cases shows that such is not the case. Correlations between one 

 parent and the offspring, closely equivalent to that determined 

 above, have been shown to obtain for characters that are known 

 to be inherited in the alternative fashion. For example, we 

 note that according to Pearson and Lee ('00) the character of 

 eye color in man runs from 0.55 to 0.44 (averaging almost exactly 

 0.5); again, the character of coat color in thoroughbred horses 

 shows a degree of correlation, between sire and foal, of 0.517 and, 

 between dam and foal, of 0.527. A survey of individual cases goes 

 far to bear out the conclusion here suggested that aggregates of 

 meristic variates may be inherited in the alternative fashion. 

 Such a survey is attempted in the next section of the paper. 



2. There appears to be practically no difference between the 

 degree of correlation for mothers and males and that for mothers 

 and females. In other words, there is no sexual dimorphism or 

 sex limitation in the inheritance of the characters in question. 

 Indirectly this goes to support the assumption that the fathers and 

 mothers have an equal influence on the determination of the scute 

 numbers and hence that a study of the modes of inheritance based 

 solely on the mothers is likely to reveal all the fundamental facts 

 of inheritance. What little difference exists between the coeffi- 

 cients of correlation of males and mothers and that of females and 

 mothers is in favor of the latter, females being a little more like 



