112 TEIJI HOSHINO 



reliable record of hereditary diseases over a period of several gen- 

 erations. Therefore, it will undoubtedly be interesting to copy 

 from his notes and from one of his reports ('18) the remarkable 

 parentage of these pigeons. The following is a brief summary of 

 this history. 



From an egg produced by the weakening influences of 'repro- 

 ductive overwork' a female pigeon no. 151 was hatched in 1914 

 which showed a marked lack of power over the voluntary move- 

 ments of the head and body. This lack of coordination was prac- 

 tically completely lost in the adult bird. The affected female 

 was bred to two normal males, A126 scraggly and C-B9. The 

 derangement has been inherited through four generations de- 

 scended from either male. 



The parents of no. 151 were raised by Professor Whitman. 

 The male parent, a two-barred homer H-A, had no ataxic symp- 

 tom nor did his sire or dam. H-A homer was an inbred, for its 

 parents were brother and sister. The dam of no. 151 was of the 

 homer-carrier type, normal and without ataxia. These parents 

 of no. 151 laid for the last time in 1914 on about October 12th 

 to 14th, and one of these eggs hatched the ataxic female. This 

 female (no. 151) was thus hatched at the end of the season from 

 a pair of birds which had been kept constantly at work and from 

 parents one of which was an inbred. 



When first out of the nest the abnormality of no. 151 was noted, 

 and therefore the next pair of eggs produced by parents of no. 151 

 were also incubated. The two birds hatched from these eggs 

 .resembled no. 151, but were not ataxic. There is no record of 

 ataxia in any of the other descendants of the parents of no. 151 

 during the entire previous four years. There is reason to believe 

 that this character arose within the germ that produced no. 151 

 and that the weakening effects of abnormally rapid egg-laying 

 and possibly the inbreeding of the male parent were causally 

 related to the appearance of the character. 



The sire (A428) of the 'scraggly' male no. A126 was a checkered 

 .Columba livia domestica, which had the tips of the wings white. 

 • As is well known, white is apt to appear in these outmost wing- 

 feathers in many breeds of the domestic pigeons. This restricted 



