44 HEREDITARY CHARACTERS 



same alternative distribution of chromosomes to the gametes 

 as is supposed to occur by the other school of observers, so 

 in so far as the argument in Chapter II. is concerned, it is of 

 no importance which interpretation is correct. Some of the 

 upholders of the approximation theory, however, appear to 

 believe that the pairs of chromosomes joined side by side 

 divide transversely en bloc, as shown in Fig. 17, b and c. 

 But the division in which reduction takes place is not the last 

 division ; in both animals and plants there is always another 



FIG. 18. Showing the result of the division following the meiotic with regard 

 to the distribution of the chromosomes to the gametes, if the chromosomes 

 behave as described by the Louvain School. 



division before the production of the mature gametes. Now 

 all biologists are agreed that in the division following that in 

 which reduction takes place, the chromosomes split longi- 

 tudinally, so that even if the pairs of chromosomes in the 

 meiotic division are joined lengthways and not end-to-end, 

 the alternative distribution is brought about in the next 

 division just as certainly as it would be in the meiotic 

 division were the chromosomes joined end-to-end (Fig. 18). 

 Thus, whichever interpretation is accepted, we still have the 

 alternative distribution of the chromosomes. 



