548 



The Jc3urnal of Heredity 



excessive spoliation, which has produced 

 vicious idleness and luxurious indul^^- 

 ence, with the ultimate effect of dimin- 

 ishing the birth rate. 



Within the nation there may be 

 various results. Sometimes, by the 

 reduction of overcrowding, natural selec- 

 tion will be less severe. On the other 

 hand, the loss of that part of the 

 population which is more econcmicalh- 

 productive is a very serious loss, leading 

 to excessive poverty with increased 

 severity in the action of natural selec- 

 tion. Selection is also rendered more 

 intense by the heavy burden of taxation, 

 as is now so evident in Great Britain 

 directly, and in the very common depre- 

 ciation of currency as in the Southern 

 States after the Civil War. 



Sexual selection as well as lethal is 

 affected by war in manifold ways. 

 Considering the armed force, there is 

 an inter-group selection, when the 

 enemy's women are assaulted by the 

 soldiers. While this has been an im- 

 portant factor in the past, this is less 

 common now, with better army disci- 

 pline and higher social ideals. 



W^ithin the group, mating at the out- 

 set of a war is greatly increased by 

 many hurried marriages. There is also 

 sometimes an increase of illegitimacy in 

 the neighborhood of the training camps. 

 In each of these in.stances, these 

 matings do not represent as much 

 maturity of judgment as there w^ould 

 have been in times of peace, and hence 

 give a less desirable sexual selection. 



In considering the belligerent nation 

 at home, the number of marriageable 

 males is of course far less than at 

 ordinary times. It becomes im])ortant. 



then, to compare the quality of the non- 

 combatants and those combatants which 

 survive and return home, since their 

 absence during the war period of course 

 decreases their reproduction as com- 

 pared with the non-combatants. The 

 marked excess of women over men, 

 both during the war and after, neces- 

 sarily intensifies the selection of women 

 and proportionately reduces that of 

 men, since relatively fewer men \A'ill 

 remain unmated. This excess of women 

 is found in all classes. Among superiors 

 there are, in addition, some women who 

 never marry from the lack of sufficiently 

 eligible suitors caused by the war. 



In the past, and still among many 

 savage peoples, inter-group selection 

 has been affected by the stealing of 

 women from the vanquished. The 

 effect of this has been very different, 

 depending on whether these women 

 would otherwise have been killed or 

 spared, and also depending on the 

 relative quality of their nation to that 

 of their conquerors. 



To sum up, we find there are so many 

 features of natural selection, each of 

 which must be separately weighed and 

 the whole then balanced, that it is a 

 matter of extensive inquiry to determine 

 whether a certain war has a preponder- 

 ance of eugenic or dysgenic results. In 

 the present war it would seem that the 

 high quality of both sides compared 

 with the rest of the world is so pre- 

 dominant a dysgenic factor that, to- 

 gether with the other dysgenic features, 

 the eugenic results are overbalanced. 

 The human species therefore on account 

 of this is at present declining in inherent 

 quality faster than in any previous 

 similar length of time. 



Pure Lines in Cotton 



The influence of environment upon pure lines is being studied in a systematic 

 w^ay by the North Carolina and Mississippi Exjieriment Stations, which are grow- 

 ing the same strain of cotton in the two localities, and carefully comjxiring the i)lants 

 at different stages. The North Carolina Station is further making a study of in- 

 heritance and association of some of the imjjortant characters of the cotton ])lant. 

 A study of the value of kernels of corn taken from different ])orlions of the ear has 

 been made and it has been found that those from aloout the middle produce stalks 

 that yield most heavily. 



