36 THE MAIN CURRENTS OF ZOOLOGY 



Accordingly, since his influence preceded Mendel's, 

 Galton is commonly recognized as the founder of 

 the scientific study of heredity. Observations of 

 "Mendelian inheritance" began to be active only 

 after the opening of- the twentieth century. 



Galton. Francis Galton (1822-1911) Fig. 9, by 

 directing attention to the inheritance of individual 

 characters made the subject of heredity manageable. 

 Previously, hereditary traits had been considered in 

 their entirety, and the resemblances and differences 

 of parents and their offspring had been averaged. 

 This method was too diffuse, since no one could 

 distinguish sharply among the multiplicity of char- 

 acters; greater definiteness was introduced when 

 Galton began to study hereditary characters sep- 

 arately. 



Galton was the grandson of Doctor Erasmus 

 Darwin and the half cousin of Charles. After pub- 

 lishing books on his travels in Africa, he began the 

 experimental study of heredity, and in 1871, he read 

 before the Royal Society of London a paper on the 

 theory of inheritance. The observations upon which 

 he based his conclusions were made by the transfu- 

 sion of blood in rabbits and their after-breeding. 

 Later he observed the method of inheritance of spots 



