WILLIAM BATESON—-MORGAN 527 
of the work that Bateson and his collaborators were carrying out at 
Cambridge is here set down. The reports give an insight both 
into the methods undertaken to study the problems and into the 
origin of some of the ideas at which Bateson later arrived. It is 
difficult to pick out any one subject as more important than another, 
but the work on stocks by Miss Saunders, the work of Hurst and of 
Bateson and Punnett on the inheritance of the shape of the comb 
and color of the plumage in poultry, the work on sweet peas by 
Bateson and Punnett contributed many important facts to the study 
of genetics. The explanation of the reversion that occurs when 
certain white races of peas are crossed, taken in connection with 
Cuénot’s analysis of the relation of recessive whites to color deter- 
miners in mice, and the discovery of coupling and repulsion of 
certain characters in sweet peas (1906) (now more familiarly known 
as linkage) are two of the outstanding results that have had im- 
portant developments in the extension of Mendelism. But in such 
an abundance of material it is difficult to select the more significant 
parts. One feature of these reports is characteristic. Nothing is 
glossed over for the sake of uniformity. Exceptions are reported 
and emphasized. Their examination whenever possible is the start- 
ing point for further study that is often illuminating. In a sum- 
mary of genetic work up to 1906 (Progr. Rei. Botan.) Bateson made 
the following significant comment ‘“* * * It is practically im- 
possible to make any general statement as to which characters are 
dominant and which are recessive * * * It may be suggested 
that in the dominant type some element is present which is absent 
in the recessive type. The difficulty in applying such a generaliza- 
tion lies in the fact that not very rarely characters dominate which 
appear to us to be negative.’ As examples, the dominance of horn- 
less cattle and of the abortive condition of the female organ in the 
lateral florets of barley are given. ‘Consequently we are almost pre- 
cluded from regarding dominance as merely due to the presence of 
a factor which is absent in the recessive form. Not impossibly we 
may have to regard such negative characters as due to the presence 
of some inhibiting influence, but in our present stage of knowledge 
there is no certain warrant for such an interpretation.’ This reserved 
attitude Bateson always held, returning to a discussion of it in a 
paper that appeared (Jour. Genetics, 1926) shortly after his death.” * 
“Of the public addresses that Bateson gave, the inaugural lecture 
delivered at Cambridge in 1908 on his appointment to the new pro- 
fessorship in biology is in some respects the most interesting. In this 
address he puts the essential facts of the new work in heredity before 
a general university audience with a vigor that still makes it inter- 
esting reading. In it occurs a statement that I like to quote both on 
5 Science, vol. LXIII, p. 533, 1926. 
