Mendel's Experiments 



In such cases the offspring* display some paternal 

 characters and some maternal ones, and some 

 characters in which the maternal and paternal 

 peculiarities are blended. An example of in- 

 heritance of this description is furnished by a 

 cross between the golden and the amherst 

 pheasants. 



VI. The offspring may be quite unlike either 

 parent. For example, Cuenot found that some- 

 times a grey mouse when crossed with an albino 

 produces black offspring. 



The first two kinds of inheritance were care- 

 fully investigated by Gregor Johann Mendel, 

 Abbot of Brunn. The results of his experiments 

 were published in the Proceedings of the Natural 

 History Society of Brunn, in 1854, but attracted 

 very little notice at the time. 



Mendel experimented with peas, of which many 

 varieties exist. He took a number of varieties, 

 or sub-species, which differed from one another 

 in well-defined characters, such as the colour of 

 the seed coat, the length of the stem, etc. He 

 made crosses between the various varieties, being 

 careful to investigate one character only at a 

 time. He found that the offspring of such 

 crosses resembled, in that particular character, 

 one only of the parents, the other parent ap- 

 parently exerting no influence on it. Mendel 



141 



