BATESON ON THE PRIMROSE xxix 



tion of which * Darwin devoted the greater part of 

 a volume' — in fact the whole volume up to p. 277, the 

 last page being 345. Of the great central discovery he 

 says in his Autobiography : ' I do not think anything in 

 my scientific life has given me so much satisfaction as 

 making out the meaning of the structure of these 

 plants';^ and again, a few pages later: * No little dis- 

 covery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the 

 making out the meaning of heterostyled flowers.' - 



And now w^hat have Bateson and Gregory done that 

 makes their work the only possible solution of the 

 problem upon which Darwin made all these fruitful 

 investigations ? 



Mendel published his discovery in 1866, but it was 

 ' entirely lost sight of until the same facts were inde- 

 pendently rediscovered in 1899 by de Vries working 

 in Holland, by Correns in Germany, and by Tschermak 

 in Austria '.^ Bateson and Gregory in England then 

 applied the rediscovery to the characters upon which 

 depend the heterostyled condition of the primrose. In 

 Lock's triumphant statement quoted on p. xxvii we are told 

 that in the result the thrum-eyed condition (stamens high 

 up, pistil short) was a Mendelian dominant to the pin- 

 eyed condition (stamens low down, pistil long).^ Accept- 

 ing this account, what does it amount to ? Beginning 

 with two parents, one thrum-eyed and one pin-eyed, the 

 next or second generation would have the appearance of 

 thrum-eyed. Breeding these together, a quarter of the 



^ Lt/e and Letters^ vol. i, p. 91. 



^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 97. 



^ R. H. Lock, I.e., pp. 178-9. 



* This, however, is not Bateson's own account of his result ; for he 

 says : — ' It is doubtful if "■ thrum " ever breeds true, as both the other 

 types can do . . . .' The third type here referred to is the mid-styled or 

 intermediate condition. See Report British Association^ 1904, p. 586 n. 



