COMBS OF FOWLS 193 



real advance in knowledge. It is not a difficult experi- 

 ment, and it is one which any breeder of fowls who is 

 willing to do the work carefully and conscientiously 

 could quite easily undertake. 



We have felt bound, though reluctantly, to comment 

 upon the conclusions and the methods of Biometricians. We 

 have felt impelled to do so, because from the Mendelian 

 School — after years of experimental breeding, during which 

 more than 12,500 hens were bred and recorded by Pro- 

 fessor Bateson and Mr. R. C. Punnett, and to which 

 must be added the valuable experimental work of Mr. 

 C. C. Hurst and of Professor Davenport, there has issued 

 the conclusion that the characters of the combs of fowls 

 are hereditarily transmitted in accordance with Mendelian 

 principles ; and that the experimental results can be 

 adequately explained by supposing that the various 

 characters are determined by the existence of definite 

 gametic factors. The paper of Dr. Pearl which has 

 appeared in " Biometrika " is published ostensibly with 

 the purpose of casting doubt upon the Mendelian 

 conclusions. It is perhaps unnecessary to further con- 

 trast the difference in the method or the extent of the 

 work of the two schools. We need only compare 

 the 96 combs gathered " indiscriminately to the 

 biometrical mill, and remember that the parentages 

 of the individuals which bore them were unknown 

 or ignored, and the relation of one generation to the next 

 therefore was unconsidered, with that precise and 

 definite gametic analysis of each of the many individuals 

 chosen to constitute the breeding stock from the total 

 of the 12,500 hens which were bred in the course of the 

 investigation, and which is the essential attribute of Men- 

 delian methods, to enable us to arrive at a conclusion as 

 to which of the two Schools has its methods most 

 based on a lasting foundation. 



There is one further point that requires some comment 

 here. On page 432 of their paper the authors lay great stress 

 upon the existence of " intermediates " between typical pea 

 combs and single combs. That fact has long been known 

 to Mendelians, and was described in the first report to the 

 Evolution Committee of the Royal Society, in 1901, 

 page 94. It would have been more in consonance with 



