Phenomena of Inheritance 73 



and other traits from the other parent, so that it is a kind of 

 mosaic of ancestral traits. Such inheritance, bit by bit, of this 

 character from one progenitor and that from another was de- 

 scribed by Galton as "particulate" (Fig. 23) and is known today 

 as "Mendelian." As we shall see later (p. 88 et seq.) this is prob- 

 ably the only kind of inheritance. On the other hand Galton 

 supposed that in some instances a child might inherit all or nearly 

 all of his traits from one parent, a thing which is most improb- 

 able; such inheritance he called "alternative"* (Fig. 23). 



In other cases the traits of the parents appear to blend in the 

 offspring, as for example, in the skin color of mulattoes; such 



BLENDING ALTERNATIVE PARTICULATE 



FIG. 23. DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE THREE KINDS OF INHERITANCE described 

 by Galton. Only the last of these (particulate) really occurs. (After 

 Walter.) 



cases were called by Galton "blending" inheritance (Fig. 23). 

 Such cases of blending inheritance are now known to be the 

 result of particulate inheritance of many factors (p. 108). Some- 

 times characters appear in offspring which were "latent" in the 

 parents but were "patent" in one or more of the grandparents ; 



* It is necessary to distinguish between alternative inheritance of a single 

 character (Mendel) and this supposed alternative inheritance of all char 

 acters (Galton), 



