300 FERNANDUS PAYNE 



believe it comes very near being a fact. I make this statement 

 because Carothers ('13) who describes in three species of grass- 

 hoppers an unequal pair of chromosomes which is arranged on 

 the spindle according to the law of chance, states that I argue 

 that there is no haphazard arrangement of the chromosomes. 

 Based upon the fact that in Gryllotalpa we find two chromo- 

 somes, apparently independent of each other, moving to the 

 same pole, I suggested the possibility that there may be law 

 and order in the arrangement and movement of all the chromo- 

 somes, although the microscope does not reveal it to us. The 

 large end of the unequal pair and the single chromosome are 

 brought into the male by the egg. In maturation they always 

 pass into the female-producing spermatozoon. They never enter 

 the male line. This being the case I further suggested the possi- 

 bility that all the chromosomes brought into the male by the 

 egg may pass into the female-producing spermatozoon and those 

 brought in by the sperm into the male-producing spermatozoon. 

 I believed the facts in Gryllotalpa warranted the suggestion and 

 I still believe so, although suggesting a possibility is not arguing 

 in favor of it. While it is well to bring as much evidence as 

 possible to the chance arrangement of the chromosomes and to 

 refute any unjust evidence against it, yet, it seems to me, we 

 must also keep a sharp lookout for other possibilities. It was 

 from this standpoint that I made the suggestions. 



If the chromosomes should move as suggested, I stated that 

 one of the difficulties to be met would be the transmission of 

 characters from father to daughter and mother to son. This 

 expression, "father to daughter and mother to son" was perhaps 

 not well chosen, and perhaps Carothers's criticism of it was just. 

 What I meant was the transmission of characters from the male 

 to the female line and vice versa. In order to explain such 

 crossing I said we might assume the chromosomes to be made 

 of units and that we might have an interchange of such units 

 at synapsis. The latter part of this suggestion was not new. 

 It is a part of the chiasma-type theory of Jansen and Morgan, 

 and with the abundant evidence from the experiments of Morgan 

 and his students, it seems that even the most conservative must 



