176 H. H. NEWMAN 



Although it is much more common to find all four fetuses mater- 

 nal or paternal for any particular shield there are many sets in 

 which a more complex distribution of parental dominance exists. 

 C 95 is a good example of such a set, for it is clear that in the 

 cephalic shield all fetuses are paternal, in the scapular shield II, 

 III and IV are maternal, in the bands II and IV are maternal, in 

 the pelvic shield I is maternal, while in the caudal shield I and II 

 (and possibly III and IV) are maternal. Of the 20 regions of the 

 four fetuses 10 are maternal in scute counts and the other 10 are 

 presumably paternal. Such a state of affairs as this is probably 

 the result of the union of two parents of rather similar scute 

 characters, so that there was no very pronounced opposition of 

 scute numbers in any of the regions. The balance between the 

 influences exerted by the two parents is so equal that there is a 

 sort of alternating dominance even in a given shield, in that some 

 fetuses are, with respect to any given shield, maternal and others 

 paternal. When two parents are sharply opposed, however, 

 either with respect to the whole armor or with respect to any 

 shield, one or the other parental tendency dominates in all fetuses. 

 It is impossible to determine what factors may be responsible for 

 the dominance of one or the other parental tendencies. Sometimes 

 the larger number dominates the smaller and sometimes the oppo- 

 site is true. We may have to do with the comparative vigor of 

 maternal and paternal germ cells or to mere chemical differences 

 in the materials whose activities result in the production of scutes. 

 The result is a typical case of alternating dominance. 



An interesting correlation with regard to parental resemblances 

 exists between certain of these largest aggregates of scutes in that 

 it is very common to find that the three shields comprising the 

 body armor (scapular, bands and pelvic) behave in inheritance as 

 though they were a single region, all three being either maternal 

 or paternal. Such a state of affairs is found in sets C 15, C 23, 

 C 21, C 76, and so forth. The division of the body armor into 

 these three regions is after all really arbitrary and is due to the 

 fact that a certain mid-body region has been secondarily broken 

 up into movable bands. Ancestrally the whole shield was doubt- 

 less rigid and evolution has been in the direction of developing 



